Play It Again, Jack
by jazzforthecaptain
Summary: Captain Jack Harkness is in the process of re-forming Torchwood, when the Leviathan arrive, looking for him. He's rescued short of catastrophe by Castiel: pushy, arrogant, humorless, and more buttoned up than the Royal Guard on parade day. Thus Jack finds himself on a mission to defeat a quasi-biblical, ferociously hungry race, change history and save the world. Again.
1. Part One

Like sexuality, boarding school rules and paperclips, time can be bent. Since you're talking to me, I'm pretty sure you know that already. It can be twisted, folded back on itself, sliced apart and sewn together. For being intangible, it's one of the most readily manipulated substances in the universe. Right up there with water and a Traxxian after a few cocktails.

Kidding, kidding. The cocktails are optional.

Most of the twenty-first century world we live in has a different attitude about time. There's as many takes on it as there are species on Earth: spirals, rays, wheels, highways, rivers, and that's just the metaphysical - the 'religious' opinions, if you will. That's not even touching on theories of parallel realities caused by choices that fragment- heh, you get the idea. But just about everyone agrees on one key principle: you can't go back. You can write about it, make movies, sing songs, and daydream, but you can't actually go.

They're wrong, of course. With enough power and the right technology, you can go anywhere (and anywhen) you want. My opinion on whether or not that's a good thing changes by the day. Then again, I only know a handful of the Doctor's stories and I already know that if time was strictly linear, the universe would have been dead a long, long time ago. So I guess, looking at it that way, it's a good thing after all.

Doesn't change the fact that it's an unstable, complicated pain in the ass. Time does what it wants, breaks its own rules, and no matter how important you think you are, it will keep right on ticking away without you.

No wonder I love it. It's the most functional, honest relationship I've ever had.

The reason I bring up time is because this story is _about_ it. This story is _because_ of it. There are reasons why we have rules for time travel, and there are reasons why we break those rules. When you break a rule, there's always fallout. Sometimes if you're lucky, you have the chance to fix it instead of only suffering through.

Sometimes, if you're _very_ lucky, you actually succeed.

But that's sort of getting ahead of myself.

Fair warning, I do that a lot.

If I'm telling this story chronologically, we'd start back in 2007, when - without realizing it - I met my first angel of the Lord. But time's a messy thing the minute the Doctor is involved (and when Captain Jack Harkness is involved, things get messy, period). So we'll start when it all actually kicked off, which was a gorgeous Friday afternoon in April.

In 2011.

If we're talking about me here (Which we are. Aren't you excited? I know I am.), this happened before I met the Doctor. Although at that point in Earth's timeline I'd managed to take over Torchwood, rebuild it in his image, and then disband it. Or maybe I hadn't yet, because the April he took Rose to see the Prince, they were still getting to know one another. It'd be a while before they showed up in the middle of war-torn London to botch a perfectly good con (enter yours truly).

See what I mean? Time gets messy. Dates are sort of irrelevant at this point, and you'd only get confused.

How do I know all this?

Let's just say information tends to fall into my lap.

So. Back to Prince William Arthur Philip Louis. He was getting married. All right looking guy; too British for my taste. The Doctor has soft spots for people, occasionally, which is how the creatures I'd come to know as the Leviathan ended up such a threat in the first place. Bad thing, when the Doctor gets a soft spot.

Oh. Not for Prince William.

Though I'm pretty sure he's got a thing for blondes.

* * *

_April 29, 2011 - London  
Rose_

Rose hadn't known the Doctor very long. They'd had a few adventures together, but the whole thing seemed a bit of a lark yet. He liked her, she was rather sure of that, and she certainly had more fun with him than she'd had in her previous nineteen years of living. The daring leather jacket, the air of mystery, the whole flying-through-space bit… maybe she was still waiting to wake up.

She mentioned Prince William, and he took her to see the man's wedding. As in, didn't only take her to the procession, but actually _into_ Westminster Abbey, free and clear. Previously, the closest she'd ever gotten to a royal wedding were the broadcasts on telly and of course, the regular tabloid confessionals in the papers. A girl could get used to this. Not the royal treatment and all from the Doctor - his idea of fun was running through the muck like mad on some exploding planet or other - but the _experiencing_ things. The feeling of being behind the big curtain. Of being special; really living all the bits she expected to only glimpse. A girl grows up like she did, takes the bus like everyone else, who'd have felt special? _Exactly._

Flushed and excited from sneaking into the ceremony, Rose noticed something strange going on around the TARDIS when she exited the building. The Doctor had been gone a while before, but that was nothing new. She was used to looking round to find him gone. That was, well, sort of what the Doctor… _did_. It was her job to catch up, and the sooner she learned to run faster, the better.

There were people about; ones Rose knew instinctively were _wrong_. The Doctor was having a discussion with two men and a woman near the stand of bushes where they'd left the TARDIS. That alone was unusual. His exchanges with people were usually pretty brief, except her - well, except people who were important or dangerous. Rose figured it was some sort of security protocol.

Then one of them made a lunge for him.

Rose watched with a stab of icy shock as he leapt away, the woman's hands passing an inch from his jacket. He pivoted, saw Rose rooted to the spot, and galloped away into the dark without a word. All three people gave chase, splintering as they entered the shadows of the trees.

Rose knew what happened to girls who ran after the hero, shouting his name like a tit. They got snatched and used for leverage. She wasn't about to be anybody's hostage. So she let herself into the TARDIS, and she waited. The Doctor arrived fifteen minutes later, grim as a grave in November.

"Those things aren't supposed to be on the loose," the Doctor said, displeasure tugging his mouth into one wide, feral grimace after another, "they were put where they were put for a reason, and now they're free, and I don't know why."

"What kind of things are they?" Rose asked, naturally.

"They've got a lot of names," the Doctor replied, "ancient Earth mythology calls them 'Leviathan.' He moved to the controls of the TARDIS, pushing buttons and examining screens with a perpetual frown. "On other worlds, they're 'the Hungry.' They're older than me, almost as old as time. Adaptable, intelligent, dangerous... eat anything with a heartbeat. They were locked away in an empty, dead reality because they eat whole worlds. Eventually, they'll make a break for it, but by then the Earth is a charred cinder and this little universe will be strong enough to fight them. Right now, here? Those things will eat every man, woman, child, and pet doggy until there's nothing left."

Around Rose, the vaulted room began to pulse and hum. "How do we stop them?"

"Can't." The single syllable was flat. "Nothing in the universe can stop them. It's still too far _behind_."

Again that little shock of chill fear, and the whole traveling-with-the-Doctor became a bit less of a lark. Rose's eyes narrowed. "So what are we supposed to do then?" She needled, "_Run?_"

The Doctor looked up, a lot less the dashing anarchist and a lot more the sociopathic serial killer. Or the hero. Sometimes it was hard to tell them apart. A hard knot twisted in Rose's stomach.

"We find out who set them loose and we stop it from ever happening," the Doctor said.

"How?"

Then he smiled. The knot loosened a fraction.

"We'll think of something, won't we? Come on."

* * *

_Present Day  
Jack_

I'll never know how all this would have played out without intervention. The Doctor, Castiel, me - we'd all had a hand in it by then, whether we knew it or not. Maybe it was supposed to be fiddled with. Maybe time's like a half-finished song that way. It just waits around for someone to tweak the harmony just right, until the whole thing's so beautiful it breaks your heart.

Time's one of the few things I can get poetic about. Just about everything else is sharp and cold and predictable. Even life gets that way after a few hundred years. But time - it's so beautifully unstable. It's supposed to be, and that's my favorite thing about it. Maybe I could go back and change my own fate. But what kinds of repercussions would that have? Would it be better or worse?

I'm jumping ahead again. Hey, I warned you.

I haven't had the chance yet to ask the Doctor about those orders left for Torchwood. I don't think he left all of them then, because then, he hadn't met me. But you know that story already. Somehow or other, there were a handful of time-sealed orders left for Torchwood, this one among them. And when the box popped open there was an envelope for Tosh and a typewritten message for the rest of us:

_Carreg Cennan  
5:55AM, 20 December, 2007  
Collect item for storage.  
Release Date: 11 December, 2012._

The curious bit came afterward, underneath, hand-written in pen:

_Under no circumstances are you to allow it to wake prior to the release date. No flirting._

It was my handwriting. Although I doubt anybody but Ianto might have noticed that. I'm not the note-leaving kind.

So that's where we were. Ianto might have told you how it was wet and freezing and dark already because that was the longest night of the year. Pretty sure Gwen was upset that we were following another arcane directive out of a box and - as usual - I'd told her nothing. Owen was adorably insubordinate under his breath as always. And Tosh had her head buried in her Rift monitor - she probably would have given statistics and completely missed the forest for the trees.

Huh. I never thought about it like this, but all together, they sort of made up a complete picture. Even Owen. Life just isn't right without a measured amount of sarcasm.

But this was me. And by then, it would take a lot more than a winter downpour and a wild goose chase to kill my buzz. I _like_ wild goose chases. I like not knowing. I didn't mind the trudge up the hillside to Carreg Cennan, because whatever was going to be in that castle ruin in a few minutes was a great big fantastic surprise. I remember that I was in a great mood, partly because the Rift energy pulsing over the castle was _amazing_, and partly just because my good mood annoyed everyone else.

Plus, Ianto brought enough hot coffee for an army. Really, that's all I need to get through a cold night watch.

The soft hum of Tosh's Rift activity reports slipped into the background. I only needed the update for verification, anyway. When you've spent as much time around the Rift as I have, you start to get a feel for it. The Rift thinking about doing something feels tight and full, like something pushing out of a space it's too small to fit in. When Tosh's voice rose a key, and the world started to go all staticky and bright, I already knew it was coming. The rain seemed to slow down, and the castle atrium went blue-white.

They all stayed with me, crouched, Gwen and Ianto's guns raised more for the security of pointing a weapon at something than any real imminent threat. I wasn't worried. Whatever the Rift was about to wash up on our little shore, I could deal with it.

Then space and time opened, and the Rift spat him out. The world brightened more, and then more, and then it literally charred my retinas.

The others had thankfully the good sense - or the instinctive pain response - to look away, but that wasn't me. Not in a long time, anyway. Theirs would have been a permanent blindness, but mine was just blackness and pain for a minute or two. Long enough for Ianto to realize something had happened to me, and put a wet hand on the back of my head. Gwen said what everyone was probably thinking by then, having gotten over their excitement.

"Jack? Are you all right?"

"Fine," I said and clamped my hand over what was left of my eyes, "Bright, wasn't it? Must have left my sunglasses in the SUV."

I fancied a little smoke must have curled past my fingers, because she was on me too, after that. She touched my cheek.

"No you're not. What's happened? Let me see. Owen!"

"I'm _fine_, Gwen. Everyone else all right?"

"Good," Ianto said, "and it's not up yet, Jack. ...He. He's not up yet."

I kept my eyes covered and refused to let him look until I had eyelids to blink again. All right, I'm exaggerating, it hadn't burned off my eyelids, but it sure felt like it had. Oh, it hurt. But some things just weren't worth upsetting Ianto. He was using that calm, soothing, cop-to-a-murder-witness voice that meant I'd managed to traumatize him anyway and he was trying not to show me.

He deserved a kiss on the forehead for that, and he got one, and then it was on to other things. Things that roasted eyeballs.

We circled the flotsam the Rift had tossed us, everyone wary. The body of a man lay cradled in the litter of leaves on the sunken paving stones. The oddest thing about him was how neatly pressed he was, as if he'd been floating around the Rift in shrink-wrap until it spat him out. Ordinary kind of guy. Had a five o'clock shadow, a kind of careworn face and didn't get much sleep, judging from the eyes. He was dressed like an accountant, or a salesman, in a gray suit, white shirt and blue tie - none of it tailored. Over it all was your average, garden variety trench coat which - while it looked clean at first looks, was peppered with dark brown spots; black at the collar and cuffs. Too big for him. Fanned out like wings at the bottom, all perfectly, oddly smooth. Like he'd been laid out there, put there, rather than dumped.

Most people tumbled out of the Rift looking dumped.

He was thin. The clothes couldn't hide that. If anything, they made it more obvious. Thin and - though he couldn't have been much shorter than me - somehow small. Fragile.

Definitely not dressed to impress, _or_ intimidate.

I glanced up at Ianto, and grinned at the look of horrified pity he quickly smoothed away. Privately, I agreed with him - nice package, poor wrapping. Too bad we couldn't keep him out of deep freeze long enough for Ianto to give him a polish.

I would have liked to watch that.

The rain eased off to a fine, cold mist. I remember that now, because we were lucky. So lucky it could make me sweat now if I thought about it too hard. That rain could have waterboarded him awake, and that would have been that. Owen and Tosh were at their scanners now that the immediate danger had passed, Gwen still loosely gripping her handgun. I tried not to rub my eyes and observed, waiting for an update.

"Well, it's sort of human, I'll give it that," Owen reported. He picked up one wrist and pushed the coat sleeve back to try for a pulse. "Heart beats, lungs pump, normal everything. But there's something in there, Jack. It's like a nuclear reactor wrapped up in a human body. Without the crazy power signature, you wouldn't even guess. I need samples to know more."

"You know what he is?" I swept Tosh and Owen both with the question. They gazed back at me blankly, then shook their heads.

"Come on," I said, turning, maybe a little disappointed that it all turned out so - well - _quiet_, "sedate him and let's get him back to the Hub. You can poke him all you want after that."

"That's... going to be a bit rough, Jack," Owen replied, voice gone soft. The cautious tone set off alarm bells, and I turned back, half expecting to see the stranger crouched to pounce Owen like a cat. But no, he was still flat on his back, spread-eagled and unconscious, and Owen was looking at the pen he used to administer anesthetic like he'd never seen it before. Then he looked up at me. "He's _been_ sedated. It's not working."

"So use something stronger," I insisted, returning to the team.

"It doesn't _get_ any stronger," Owen retorted, "you think I'd take chances with something that's not supposed to wake up? That body's human. It should be reacting, unless something's interfering with it."

I don't get impatient. There's no good reason to be. But the conversation was getting us nowhere, and without sedation, our window of opportunity got smaller with every second. I scooped up the body and started down the hill with it. It was lighter than I thought. "So we freeze him before he wakes up!" I called back.

I let Ianto drive and stayed in the back with the cargo. If it was as big and bad as the instructions and Owen hinted it was, I'd be the one to tangle with it. We folded the computers out of the way and propped him on the back bench seat. Sure, we had procedures and apparatus for securing humanoid aliens in the back of the SUV, but worrying about buckles and straps would be a waste of time. We all watched the body like a bomb you can't disarm; all except for Ianto, who - busy piloting the SUV like a fighter jet - kept his eyes on the road. Gwen looked torn. Her conscience was bothering her, and so was her curiosity. She might not have liked sprinting off into the wilderness without a plan, but I could tell she liked shoving the poor guy in a freezer without asking his name even less.

Once again, we got lucky. According to Owen, the guy wasn't playing opossum: he was still out when we hauled him into the Hub. I kept the team in the lab with Owen as he prepared the body for cold storage, and like Gwen, I caught myself wondering about him. What was his name? Where was he from? Why was he so important that we'd been given instructions on what to do with him and when?

I wanted to talk to him before we pushed that drawer in, downstairs in the morgue. But when you get orders like that, you don't bend the rules. You do, and they tend to bend _you_.

Five years seemed a long time to wait until I got my questions answered. Anything could happen between then and now. But at least I did know one thing for sure: I'd be around to get them answered. I could hold out.

The capsule closed. Owen monitored the readings from its console, and announced that yes, the body had gone into a torpid state. By the time I entered my administrative rights and set the time lock, everyone had resumed their normal lives. Only Owen and I remained in the lab with the capsule. In a few minutes, we'd wheel it downstairs, and push it into one of the empty drawers, and the night would be over.

"What do we do with his stuff?" Owen gestured to the pile of folded clothing on the end of the metal table. Suit, tie, coat and shoes. Everything he'd arrived with. _All_ he'd arrived with. Like the rest of the guy, somehow they looked... small. Sad, without him. I can ignore that sort of thing most of the time. Guess my curiosity got the better of me.

I wasn't - I'm still not - a sentimental person. Can't afford to be. But most of the people in those drawers were dead. We kept them for a reason, and none of them were getting around anytime soon. They didn't need a set of spare clothes. He might. He _would_.

In the end, I took them, and I put them away. Of course, in a month I'd completely forget I had them. Bigger things to worry about than a cheap suit and a trench coat.

And that was before the Hub exploded.

But you already know how that turned out. And if you don't, you don't need to.

Trust me.

* * *

So, around about October of 2011, things were finally winding down again. Would you believe I didn't know about the Leviathan until then? I know, me either. Still a little annoyed about that, but hey, in July the world stopped dying. Priorities. I had a team composed of a rookie, CIA with an ego problem (like that's anything new), and Gwen. Plus, for about two months, I was flat on my back. Definitely not the way I wanted to spend my summer vacation.

At least not because I'd been shot.

You were waiting for me to say that, weren't you? I don't like to disappoint.

Thinking back now, I wonder what the Winchesters were doing. Things didn't really start ratcheting up with the Leviathan until September, after we brought death back for everybody but me.

Well, me, and now Rex. He wasn't thrilled about that, believe me.

Of course they had to know what was going on. Sam's addicted to current events. Maybe they were searching for their own solution. In fact, I bet they were. In fact, if I could have tagged them to play on my team, we probably would have had the Families cornered sooner.

They'd at least have been a fun distraction.

By October, as far as I could tell, the world was back to the grind. Moving on from Miracle Day. That's humans for you. There were still funerals every day to catch up on the backlog; still news reporters asking what happened to Oswald Danes and Ellis Monroe. But by and large, everyone was happy to return to their morning commute without being badgered by the radio to ponder the consequences of an endless existence.

I decided to stay in L.A. for a while, having forgotten how much I liked the town. Plus, the weather was fantastic - nothing like Wales, and exactly how I wanted it for now. And it was too far for Gwen to move with the baby. Good old Rhys. If I'd told her to go home, she'd have stayed in L.A. just for spite. But Rhys knew just the right balance of leverage and guilt.

Never have been very good at the whole 'guilt' thing, me.

Not that kind, anyway.

The Rift was closed over Cardiff, but future tech, parallel universe tech: still out there. Captain John Hart was watching over a small Rift in Mexico City. Staying in California would cut down on the flight time when he inevitably messed that up, while still keeping plenty of distance between us. Plus, Earth still had the occasional alien invasion, and they could always be depended on to leave their junk behind like picnickers at the park.

Rex had more than enough rage-fueled passion to handle the Three Families. Since he wasn't interested in channeling it into rage-fueled passionate anything else, I left him to it. Too bad. Could've been good for him.

Anything involving the Families was mostly research anyway, and I'd rediscovered over the past few months just how much I hated that. It mostly kept us apart, which was how he wanted it. In another fifty years, he'd have to face reality, but right now he wanted to pretend he wasn't immortal. I - vaguely - remembered how that felt. Maybe I didn't respect the decision, but I could understand it.

We had a little team started. Just one other person, a girl named Phil Harper. Found her doing some sort of statistics job in a cubicle farm. You know how easy it is for an alien to hide in a cubicle farm? Way too easy. At least he'd only munched through a few coworkers before I caught him. Phil turned out to be a great help. Sweet girl. Bombproof, had a way with computers, no family, tired of her current life. I wasn't hoping for another Tosh, but I saw some potential in the short term, at least.

Didn't realize how short term. Wish I had. I would have left her there.

Statistics may be boring, but it's better than dead.

The work hadn't been too complex for a while. With scanners only a few years behind current technology, locating quarry was a matter of a few interviews and a couple hours of searching, just like the old days. We'd just started a tertiary project: consolidating Torchwood hardware in the new facility. Warehouses and storage units across the globe held bits and pieces of technology, as a means to ensure that the Hub didn't become our only access point. I hadn't expected its destruction to come so soon, but I had expected it eventually.

I was in Napa Valley when Rex called, squatting on a hillside and observing a pair of letireans from Rexel IV. Several vineyards had been complaining about a greater-than-average loss of produce, blaming foxes. Letireans look something like a cross between a fox, a cat, and a Japanese ki'rin. Thankfully witnesses only noticed the red fur and not the pearly scales.

Or the horns.

As a rule, Rex didn't call. I heard the chime of Rex's Bluetooth coming online, and let the letireans romp off into the dark. "Rex? What's up? You never call anymore."

_"Someone found the Hub, Jack. It was eating Phil when I got there."_

I froze, only just realizing that I was on my feet and heading for the jeep.

_"Then it turned into Phil. Look, man, I know y'all deal with some creepy shit. But you never said anything about aliens treating us like a prime rib dinner. I thought it was all 'take over the world, enslave the human race.'"_

I was glad of the swagger in his voice. Rex never could learn to shut up. If he'd been methodical, it might have taken me longer to get moving. As it was, even while part of me still mourned poor Phil and how I'd led her to her death like a lamb to slaughter, I could smile at his bravado.

"Trust me, Rex, we're more like fast food. Do you know where it is?"

_"Yeah, I got it. It's not doing much. Seriously, if I didn't know it wasn't Phil? I'd think it was Phil."_

"Lay low, Rex. Keep an eye on it. I'll be-"

I heard a crash, faint, in the background.

_"Yeah, exactly like Phil. Except for the part where it just started trashing the Hub,"_ Rex corrected. He'd gone from sounding angry to righteously pissed, which meant Phil's death had processed. Bad. Very bad.

I threw myself in the driver's seat and tore out of the vineyard, letireans forgotten entirely. "Rex! Don't move! I'll be-"  
He must have had his Bluetooth on. Through my headset, I heard him screaming, then gunfire, and then a scuffle. Rex was on the losing end, from the sounds of it.

I heard Phil's voice.

_"Your courage is endearing,"_ she said gently. 'Phil' gently. Far too close to the headset, I heard bones snapping. Rex cried out.

And then I heard Rex's voice, in precisely the same tone as Phil's.

_"Oh. I see why. You can't die. How __**interesting.**__ Are you-"_

The line beeped and went abruptly dead.

Six-hour drive from Vallejo to L.A.? I did it in four.

But I was still too late.

* * *

Even if I hadn't already known something was wrong, when I approached the empty storefront, I would have guessed. The street above the Hub was deserted. L.A. is never that quiet, not even in the quietest parts of the metropolis. People always need to be out for some reason, whether it's work, or a date, or coming home from one. Sometimes it's just an excuse to feel the thrill of being on the sidewalk at three in the morning. But they do. And here, they weren't.

My wrist strap agreed. There were no people on this block. Nothing but one big pulsing red point in the middle of the building in front of me. Which meant it wasn't in the building, but underneath.

The Hub. Temporarily, anyway.

Yes, it's underground again. I _like_ secret underground bases. Finding a building with a deep enough basement to hide odd noises and a menagerie of aliens and alien hardware isn't easy. I had some time to kill and a lot of helpful tech. If the idea ain't broke, don't fix it.

Anyway, if you could have the Bat Cave, would you want it? You know you would. Hush.

I tried the lock on the door to the empty building, and found it slightly ajar. Trying to sneak in was a bad idea. If the creature that ate Phil was still masquerading as Phil or - I guessed - Rex, it was best they didn't suspect I knew. I had a better chance of finding out what it was, and containing it, if I could play dumb and get it talking. If I'd known then what I know now, I would have cleared out of there. But hindsight's fifty-fifty.

I let myself into the building and headed for the back. Rex emptied a clip into the thing but - judging from the phone conversation - hadn't slowed it down a fraction. I left my gun in its holster, even though my fingers itched for it.

"Phil! Any chance there's a Domino's open this early?" My voice and the sound of my boots on the metal spiral stairs rang hollow in the empty space, "I'm starving!"

Rex's voice floated up from below, rusty, annoyed, and flawlessly, utterly Rex. "Phil went home six hours ago! Newsflash: nobody runs on the same schedule as you, World War Two."

Got to give these things credit where it's due. They could do an amazing impression routine.

"You're up," I observed, pausing halfway down and leaning on the railing. The Hub was neat. Spotless. Cold and damp, but as clean as I'd left it yesterday morning. For a second or two, I contemplated the possibility that my earpiece - or my memory - had been lying to me. You're in this business long enough, that gets to be a viable option.

Except for the small fact that the _neighborhood_ was empty. I held onto that.

Rex came out into the open before the staircase, and craned his head to look up at me. I grinned like I meant it. "Hiya, handsome. Waiting up for me again?"

His expression wrinkled with distaste. "Couldn't sleep again. For your information, I did order pizza. Not that I'm giving you any."

"Knew I could count on you," I chuckled, and started down the stairs again, "You get any weird phone calls yesterday?"

"Jack," Rex huffed a laugh, throwing his arms open, "_Torchwood_. Define 'weird.'" He walked towards the command center where we'd set up a card table. There _was_ actually a pizza box. The smell hit me then, and my stomach turned over.

"Weird as in, me or Phil, telling you the Hub was destroyed." I pulled off my headset and made a show of tapping it on the other palm.

"Yeah," Rex passed a hand through the air and peeled open the pizza box, "yeah. Which is why I called Domino's on my way here. In case the Hub-destroying aliens were hungry." He shook his head.

"Don't knock it. I've used a Chicago deep dish as leverage once or twice."

"Whatever. You want any of this or not?"

He sounded... well... like _Rex_. Not like the one I'd heard before the phone went dead.

The possibilities multiplied. The call I received could have been the result of interference with the headset: static from a parallel universe, or from the future, or aliens playing with a cell tower or a satellite. It could have been something inside my own mind; something playing on my paranoia, my bad memories. I could have been drugged. Everything I'd eaten yesterday came out of various truck stop coolers, but we'd dealt with whole shipments of tainted food products before.

But still. Neighborhood. _Empty._

Maybe I kept pushing that off because I didn't want to believe it. Plus, if something knew Rex well enough to impersonate him so thoroughly, wouldn't it know I knew about our last phone call? Was it trying to snow me? And if so, why?

I was still contemplating the options when I reached the bottom of the stairs and my fingers slid through slick black ichor on the railing. I inspected my fingers, then held them up for Rex. "What, you ordered extra squid ink this time?"

He started for me, reaching out for my fingers. And that was something Rex would absolutely not have done. If we sat next to each other at - God forbid - Gwen's family Christmas dinner, and she was the kind of person who _said_ 'grace,' he would have found an excuse not to take my hand. He calls that 'a straight guy thing,' I call that 'repression,' but as it turns out, it's a handy litmus test. The Leviathan wearing Rex's face and memories like a Halloween costume was on a mission to touch me. Rex? Yeah. Not so much.

Turned out someone else had a mission to touch me too. I felt a hand slap onto the back of my head like a starfish and the Hub, Rex, everything... popped out of existence.

When reality came together again, I knew two things straightaway: I was standing in the middle of a thick forest, and I wasn't alone.

"Hello, Jack," said the man I'd put in cold storage.

I knew, because he was wearing a Torchwood-issue medical gown and - by the looks of things - absolutely nothing else.

He collapsed.

Yeah. Definitely naked under there.

Fan_tas_tic ass, though.

By the time he came to again, I'd run a scan on him and wrapped him up in my arms against the cold. Would have given him my coat, but it was tossed over the back seat in the jeep, which was - according to my wrist strap - several hundred miles southwest of here. Because we were in the Rocky Mountains, for no reason I could make out. Really wished I hadn't been so bothered by the L.A. heat.

The guy though, he gave off heat like a furnace. Up close and personal, I realized he was soaking wet. He smelled metallic, like he'd been swimming in the ocean. The diagnostic I ran confirmed that his vitals were stressed, his temperature was unusually high, and that he wasn't giving off seawater, although he appeared to be doused in it. Maybe he'd been swimming before he came to kidnap me.

The scan indicated he'd only been thawed for a few minutes, which would explain the stress.

Wait. A few minutes?

He opened his eyes. His head swung up off my shoulder like he was a marionette and someone gave his strings a jerk. His forehead nearly collided with my nose. "Hey, hey, easy," I murmured, adjusting my grip on him to help him sit up.

"I apologize," he said primly, in a low smoker's rasp that should not have been coming out of his mouth. I can't explain it any better than that. It just... didn't belong to him. "I wasn't aware of... all the parameters when I arrived."

"Hey, sometimes the best trips are the ones you don't plan for," I said, "so how about we get you somewhere warmer, and then we can talk. Captain Jack Harkness, but it sounds like you already know that. And you would be...?"

"Castiel," he nodded, "and yes, I am aware of your name. You don't need to be concerned, however. I'm not subject to changes in temperature."

And that was when I realized that the ambient temperature hovered around zero degrees Celsius, or maybe a little above, and Castiel was wet to the skin, mostly naked, and _not shivering_. I can inspire heat in more species than you can name, but as much as I wish I could say otherwise, I'm not that good.

"Yeah," I said, helping him to his feet, "you really aren't, are you? So, why did you kidnap me? And why here? If you wanted a little alone time, you could have just-"

And then he leveled a pair of curious, incredible blue eyes on me, and I remembered he was the guy from the deep freeze, and that he came with a note in **my** handwriting: _No flirting._

The only reason I'd leave a note like that for myself was if I meant it. So I stopped. He tipped his head at me, the way a bird does when it's trying to get a better look at something. "I needed to get you out of harm's way before the Leviathan could touch you and assume your memories," Castiel explained, "This was the first place I thought of."

"Really? Middle of a state park?"

"I enjoy the peace here. And it's isolated," he said, maybe a trifle defensively. I had to smile.

"Oh, hey, no argument here. It's definitely... peaceful. But all my gear's in my jeep in Los Angeles. And my coat. I'll be honest, it's mostly about the coat." I thought about walking as a means to keep warm. Castiel might not be subject to temperature, but I was. Hypothermia would slow me down, even if it wasn't the worst way I'd ever died. Of course, Castiel was barefoot. It should have occurred to me that if he wasn't affected by the freezing temperatures, he probably wouldn't be bothered by pine needles in his soles either. But there you are.

"The Leviathan may have left by now," Castiel looked at me seriously. And when I say looked, I mean _looked_. He had one of those completely unselfconscious, animal stares. I've never had a problem winning staring matches, but I'm not too proud to admit that he made my stomach flip a little. That could also have been the instantaneous cross-country trek we'd just been on, though. "But it will return, with companions," he continued, "your base is of interest to its entire species."

"What's 'the Leviathan' and why is it so interested in my memories and my base?"

"You have knowledge of the Doctor," Castiel replied, capital letters audible in his tone, "they want that. If you have any equipment utilized in space-time travel in your current location, they will take it also."

"That's classified," I snapped, wary of someone who could say things like that so easily, "and what 'doctor?' My medic is dead."

Then two hands clapped down on my shoulders, and Castiel looked at me square on. I forgot about the fact that he looked small and tired in a wet hospital gown, with all the charm of a career librarian. I felt naked. Not in a good way. I felt like this guy, somehow, could see right down to every secret I'd ever kept.

"Jack," he said, "your attempt to protect the secrecy of your mission is admirable, but it's far too late. I know about the Doctor, I know about Torchwood. I also know that if you don't help me now, the Leviathan will take everything you're trying to protect and use it to destroy the world."

"How do you know?" I asked, struggling with my temper.

"I returned from the year 2012," Castiel replied, "when the Leviathan wins."

And we were back at the Leviathan, full circle, and I still didn't have a clue what he was talking about. I spread my hands. "All right, _stop_. Full disclosure, right now. _What is the Leviathan?_"

"There isn't time."

"Then _make_ time."

Although he gave me a you-should-know-this-already frown like a disappointed nun, Castiel told me. The Leviathan _are_, not _is_. They're very old, very hungry, and as resourceful as you'd expect from something after that much surviving. Castiel explained how the Leviathan learned that time travel was possible after a chance meeting with the Doctor. Though he kept the details vague, I assumed Castiel had been 'sampled' the same way that the Leviathan in the Hub copied Rex and Phil's identities. As a result, they had access to most of his memories. Once they knew who the Doctor was, extracting all the relevant details was just a matter of knowing where to look. Apparently, Castiel was a font of knowledge on the Time Lords.

Imagine that.

He told me how 2012 would wind up if the Leviathan managed to access what they were looking for: me.

I had no real reason to disbelieve him. This was the thing that we'd put in containment, on time-locked orders. Somehow, he was capable of time travel himself, and had come back from the year we set his capsule to release. For now, that was good enough for me.

Apparently it was good enough for him, too. I was mid-question when he tapped a couple fingers to my forehead. Then we were standing next to the jeep, outside the L.A. Hub. I slapped a hand down on the hood as my balance reoriented itself, and was faintly surprised to find the metal still warm.

Well, really, everything was warm. Blissfully warm. Definitely not Colorado.

"Next time?" I laughed, not quite as irritated as I expected to be, "More warning."

Castiel stood next to me. He faced the Torchwood building with hawk-like focus. It was the kind of superhero pose you see in comics: fists curled, chin up, eyes narrowed. He still had on the hospital gown, which might have made the whole thing funny in a _Monty Python_ way. If it wasn't for the man-eating, shapeshifting creature that might be in my basement.  
"Your base is clear," Castiel reported, turning to look at me soberly, "although it appears that the Leviathan consumed most of the people on this street."

Skeptical, I consulted my wrist. The scan reported an entirely dark street - not even a red pulse in the Hub. I hadn't seen Castiel pull out a scanner, but hey, I've hidden a gun in some pretty strange places.

"_One_ ate the entire block?" I'd dealt with some hungry aliens before, but that sounded more like the first shot of a pissing match.

"_Focus_, Jack," Castiel snapped, "we need to move your equipment before the Leviathan returns!"

And that was just it.

"That's _Captain_ Jack," I retorted, rounding on him, "I'm concerned about the fact that something ate a hundred people in a few hours, maybe including my teammates. Trust me, when I'm not focused? You'll _know_."

I'd spent the past few months alternately being kidnapped or ordered around by American feds. I'd been shot. I'd nearly been blown up. I had every drop of blood sucked out of me by a primordial tunnel through the middle of the Earth that I still didn't understand. Now? I had a freezer-burned alien in a dress with a Rex-sized ego trying to tell me what to do. On a first name basis, might I add. It took every ounce of will I had not to shoot him.

But we had a block full of missing people. One more death wouldn't solve anything, provided that a bullet would even have an effect. I led Castiel into the basement. "What are you?" I asked. I could have asked it in a nicer tone, but I'd used up all my courtesy for the month.

"I'm an angel of the Lord, _Captain_ Jack," Castiel answered, in roughly the same pleasant and understanding tone I'd used. The only angels I've run into are the quantum-locked kind. The ones who hang around cathedral architecture, waiting for people to send on a lifetime vacation to the sixties. He might have been vaguely cute, but he didn't look like sculpted marble.

Did he actually mean 'Lord' as in, 'Our Father Who Art in Heaven'? Or did the Weeping Angels finally get some sort of overhaul?

"Oh ho, that's a new one!" I said. The lights were still on in the Hub, the pizza box still on the table when we arrived. I did my best not to think about Phil and Rex. I'd do that later, when I had the luxury. Whether I believed Castiel-the-angel or not, _right now_ was my only opportunity to move critical items out of the Hub before anyone came looking for them. Whatever the Leviathan didn't get, the law would when it came to investigate the disappearances.

Castiel did that birdlike head tilt again. "I don't understand," he said, then apparently did get it after all. His puzzled expression clouded. "You don't believe me."

I shrugged, stacking equipment in a carton without looking up, "I believe you think you are," I said, which was the truth, "be happy to have this discussion with you some other time. Right now? Help me or get out of my way."

NASA could have used the temperature of the silence in that room to reach Absolute Zero.

I kept on tossing things in boxes, calculating how much room was in the jeep (not much), and what I could afford to leave behind (nothing but the furniture). Then, from the corner of my eye I saw Castiel pick up one of the loaded boxes and start up the stairs with it. He was still in his hospital gown, still barefoot, and still obviously not giving a damn about either.

"We're getting you some clothes, next stop," I told him when he came down for another box. Castiel looked down, as if he'd just noticed his apparel (and lack of) for the first time.

"This is not what I'm accustomed to," he murmured, picked up a carton loaded with diagnostic tech, and went for the stairs again. I watched him go, and not just because his loose closures afforded a fine view.

I wouldn't have called the L.A. Hub 'full' of stuff, but we had it emptied of the critical equipment in ten minutes, and I was pretty proud of that. The jeep held it all with the rear seats folded down, miraculously, but we'd have to be very careful of the speed limit.

"We can't carry all this tech around with us," I said, tossing myself into the driver's seat, "it's a liability. And fragile. I've got a storage unit just outside of town."

"Did any of your associates know about it?" Castiel asked. I hadn't even seen him get in, but there he was, in the passenger seat.

"Just Rex and-_damn_," I remembered what Castiel said about Leviathan hijacking memories (which just wasn't fair, really), "all right, new plan. Where are we headed?"

"The Leviathan are everywhere," Castiel replied, glanced at me, and for once had the decency to look worried, "I'm... not certain. My main objective was to stop them from gaining access to you."

"That's all right." I pulled out onto the empty street, careful not to draw attention to the vehicle until we were well out of the neighborhood. "Then we find a new storage unit, and we keep moving. And," I glanced at one bare knee, way too close to the floor shift to avoid touching, "we get you those clothes."

Castiel tugged at the hem of the gown and shifted in his seat. "That would be ideal."

* * *

Roughly twenty-four hours later, Castiel no longer looked like an escapee from a coma ward, I had a brand new storage unit in an undisclosed location, and a set of Minnesota license plates for the jeep. We were just outside of Barstow, headed for Kansas because - according to my new sidekick - that was where it all began.

We were also no closer to figuring out a solution. _Also_ according to Castiel, we now had time to solve the problem, but even with my tech stowed safely away, I was still a walking liability. They got me, they got the jackpot.

No pressure, or anything.

Maybe I should have been more worried about Rex, but I wasn't. I knew I'd find him eventually, or he'd find me. That kind of certainty is one of the perks of being indestructible. Maybe I'd have to cut him out of a Leviathan belly, or maybe he was just laying low in another part of the city. Until I could tell the difference between the real Rex and the counterfeit one, I wasn't going anywhere near him, let alone looking for him.

According to Castiel, the Leviathan could look like anyone. They were difficult to spot and better yet? They were everywhere. If they were all looking for me, the best thing to do was find a place without people.

Kansas ought to fit the bill.

Why were we driving, you ask? Yeah, me too. Castiel could hop back in time a couple years, then kidnap me to Colorado and back. Los Angeles to Kansas should be a snap, right? When I said something to that effect, though, all I got for my trouble was a glare and a lecture on how angels did not have bottomless personal resources, especially while also believed to be dead and thus trying to dodge Heaven. While he would very much like to handle this as quickly as possible, his batteries were fried, _thank_ you very much, and would be for the immediate foreseeable future. He was more formal about it than that, but you catch my drift. Apparently angels of the Lord are a little touchy about being powerless. I changed the subject. "So what's the most efficient way you know of to defeat these things?"

"The Leviathan are impossible to defeat," Castiel declared, "conventional weapons are useless against them. It appears the application of certain chemicals can hold them off for a time, but only temporarily. There's only one clear means to stop them indefinitely."

"Containment?" I guessed. Castiel's nod was solemn.

"They were released into this world by accident. They need to be captured and returned to Purgatory. I believe the Winchesters resurrected me for this reason. It was only by chance that I happened upon the reason why the Leviathan have become so unstoppable."

"'The Winchesters?' What organization is that?"

Castiel's head snapped up. He fixed me with a look so hard and cold that I was almost sorry I'd asked. Almost. "They are my brothers," he replied, sharp, and I caught the tiniest flicker of lunacy in those dark blue eyes, "they gave their lives for mine. I have an opportunity to save them and their world, and I will not waste it."

I thought of Phil. Esther. Tosh and Owen.

Ianto.

Steven.

I could understand the crazy gleam. But craziness like that?It just gets more people killed.

Considering his reaction to my last question, I didn't correct him about the 'resurrection' he mentioned. Though, I was curious how he'd managed to overlook the high-tech freezer he'd climbed out of.

"Torchwood has some artifacts that might be able to hold a Leviathan," I offered instead, "but everything's been scattered for a few years. I've just started tracking things down and cataloging them again. Take the wheel; I can log into the database with my laptop."

"I've never operated a vehicle."

Why didn't that surprise me? "Then you can learn a valuable new skill while you're at it," I said.

"The speed limit here is ridiculously high," Castiel's voice tightened a little with aggravation, nerves, or both, "I could destroy the vehicle, or severely injure other motorists."

"I know! Fun, right? It's a straightaway, Cas. In the middle of nowhere on a weekday: there's nobody out here but us. Just keep it under ninety and stay between the lines." I pulled the jeep onto the shoulder.

Five minutes. With my insistence, and my help, it took the angel _five minutes_ to figure out how to drive. A stick shift, even. He never got honked at! He didn't grind the gears! It certainly wouldn't be the last time I'd be subjected to Castiel's superhuman learning curve, but as firsts went, that was definitely a little humbling.

And I don't like being humbled. "You were bluffing," I accused.

Castiel shook his head. "I don't bluff. My last attempt went badly."

In twenty minutes I felt safe enough to open my laptop, leaving him to watch the road while I connected to the Torchwood software. In no time at all, the desktop was replaced by familiar soft blue undulations. Our software's almost sentient, did you know that? It's an organic living thing, happy doing exactly what it does - compiling and organizing data. The Torchwood software is another orphan rescued from the Rift before it could fall into the wrong hands. Well… not that Torchwood hands are any more or less right than anyone else, but we're definitely less likely to kill it or worse - reprogram it to aim and launch nuclear weapons.

Yet.

The cursor in the database search function blinked a question at me. Interacting with the sleek, intuitive design reminded me so much of Tosh that it ached. I knew what I could search for, but the item location catalog was only accurate through 2008, and anything listed inside Torchwood 3...

I chose 'search functionality by species' from the dropdown, and on a whim, typed "Leviathan" into the search bar.

The search returned a single result: the Portable Prison Cell we'd used to contain a variety of aliens in the past. Most recently, we'd used it to catch a gaseous alien inhabiting a girl named Carys Fletcher. There was a Tosh-era flag attached to it, which I clicked after a glance at Castiel, to be sure he was still focused on the road.

_The following is a direct transcription of the message in an envelope accompanying time-sealed orders regarding Stasis Subject #555. The message also included orders to link the Portable Prison Cell to the search term "Leviathan," and to take Retcon to remove all memory of this addition to the database._  
_Jack? If you're reading this, to be honest, I'll be glad of the Retcon. I'm having a difficult enough time keeping this from you as it is. I wish I understood why I can't tell you. Please explain all this to me when you get it. (added by T_Sato, 20/12/2007)_  
_**MESSAGE TRANSCRIPT:**__  
When you find this message, the Leviathan will be too widespread to contain. Return to July 10, 2010, to a place called Bootback, Kansas - Castiel will know where. You absolutely CANNOT attempt to stop the events taking place. Castiel must be allowed to open a portal to Purgatory and return what he has taken. The events surrounding his involvement are fixed points. You have a small window of opportunity to contain the Leviathan.  
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO SAVE CASTIEL.  
DO NOT TELL HIM ABOUT THIS MESSAGE. Let him continue to believe he was rescued by the Winchesters. You don't know them yet, but you will. They're the good guys.  
You haven't been flirting with Castiel, have you, Jack?_

I read the message over several times, then logged out and turned off the laptop. A number of things crossed my mind: questions, emotions, memories, and for a few minutes I simply let them flow unchecked. Sometimes you have to. Sometimes not acknowledging them will have a worse outcome than if you let them control you completely. It has to stop somewhere, though. I took a deep breath, and chased all the irrelevant ones off.

"Torchwood has one device with sufficient power to contain a Leviathan," I said, "unfortunately; its last known whereabouts were Torchwood 3, which means it could be anywhere."

"The explosion," Castiel's voice was low. He pulled his eyes off the road to look at me; I saw the flash of blue from my peripheral vision. I kept my eyes on the scenery, trying not to be angry at him for knowing. However he knew about the explosion, or the surrounding events, it could only be the Cliff Notes version.

He wasn't there. He didn't see.

"Yes." I kept my voice brisk and businesslike without too much trouble. "Something as small as that might have survived the blast, but it's about the size of a paper football; not easy to spot. It could have been overlooked, it could still be there. Or it could be sitting on some little girl's bookshelf in Cardiff. The battery's got to be dead by now."

Castiel didn't respond. When I looked his way again, his brow was furrowed. I guessed he was thinking, but if he was frustrated or angry or anything else, I certainly couldn't tell. So I changed the subject.

"So where are we going, in Kansas, specifically?" I asked.

"An abandoned train depot in a small town called Bootback," Castiel replied.

"And that's where everything started?"

"Yes," Castiel said, then paused."...Actually, that's false. 'Things started' long before then. But that is where the door to Purgatory was opened."

"'Was opened.'"

"Yes."

"Who opened it?" Hadn't a clue what Purgatory was, although I guessed Castiel would tell me it was something along the lines of Dante's _Inferno_. And hey, now I knew it had a door. Got to start somewhere.

Castiel paused. His knuckles whitened on the steering wheel, and I found myself faintly surprised. He hadn't been driving long enough to know how cathartic squeezing the wheel could be.

"I did," Castiel said.

"Why?"

Silence.

"I'm a good listener," I added, "…actually, I'm fairly bad at it. But I'm interested, so you've got that going for you."

Castiel's gaze cut to me a second time. While he looked at me, it felt like he was searching for something. Trying to predict my reaction, maybe. This time, I met him halfway. And you know what? Looking into Castiel's eyes for those few seconds felt like getting too close to a lightning strike. Even with a claim of being drained, I could feel the living power in him while he tried to search me. It was an adrenaline rush.

It was _fantastic_.

And hot. I wasn't thinking so much anymore about the fact that a hungry lion had a better disposition, or that I just couldn't make myself believe eighty percent of what the guy was selling - at least, not what it said on the tin. I was thinking that he looked hot driving my jeep, and that he was the most interesting thing I'd run into since Gwen went home to Swansea. And how often are interesting things _not_ trying to kill me? These days, anyway.

"I was trying to save my friends," Castiel said, "But I lacked the power necessary to stop some… larger players whose intentions would have brought them harm. Purgatory was the best source of that power. That's the best explanation I can give you. As you don't believe in the existence of angels, you'll likely find other details suspect as well." His voice was bleak.

"Probably," I agreed with a shrug; then smiled, "but wanting to save friends, I understand. Didn't go as well as you planned?"

"No," Castiel replied, "although I initially believed I had accomplished my goal, in the end I still put them in danger."

"Wouldn't be the first time that's happened," I tossed the information to the back of my brain to chew over and kept up a front of nonchalance. I even went so far as to kick my boots up on the dash. "Happens to me more than you'd think."

"I know," Castiel said darkly.

"What do you mean, 'you know?'"

Silence again.

"Oh, you are _not_ getting away with a comment like that without an explanation. Remember: I have until Kansas to get it out of you."

"It's unfortunate that you're immortal, Captain Jack Harkness," Castiel said with a sigh, eyes and hands focused on the road, "killing you would be an expedient way to keep your information safe from the Leviathan."

"Hey, they could still get viable DNA from a corpse," I pointed out.

"Not if you are _ash_," Castiel retorted. He shot me a warning glance, like he was seriously contemplating the idea.

"_Try it_, Halo," I said, only half joking, "and you'll wish you'd never _met_ me."

Castiel made an impatient noise in his throat. "I already do."

I couldn't help it. What I know about human mythology regarding angels could maybe fill a postcard, if you wrote big, and suddenly all of it was working against me. I saw Castiel in one of those flowing white robes with the big druid sleeves and hood, and a pair of chubby little white wings, and a gold halo just like you see on Christmas cards. Except this particular Christmas card angel had his teeth bared and his eyes narrowed like he was planning to murder you. Or have mind-addling hate sex.

Like I said, I couldn't help it. I laughed. I laughed until I almost cried.

"Castiel?" I gasped, "_Never_ stop being honest."

The most miraculous thing happened after that: Castiel smiled. I realized I'd never seen him do it before. It was tentative and gone in a flash, but definitely there.

"I'm... sorry," Castiel said, "I should simply have said I'd prefer not to continue the discussion." He sounded genuinely contrite. I wondered who'd taught him that one, considering his stellar social skills everywhere else.

I shrugged. "Hey, it's all right. When you lose people, you-" I remembered Angelo. Though my grief over his loss had initially been years and years ago, it was freshened both by his recent death and the changing landscape as we neared the California-Nevada border. We were less than two hours from his mansion in Henderson - a high-end suburb of Las Vegas. "-wait. Angelo." I swung my legs down and sat forward, drumming the dash with my fingertips. "He had his people comb the wreckage after Torchwood 3 was destroyed! If anyone's got it, he does."

"Where is his storage facility located?" Castiel asked. I grinned.

"On his estate," I said, "Cas, we're going to Vegas!"

I never did find out how he knew about me.

At least, not then.


	2. Part Two

As far as I understand it, Henderson, Nevada is the place to live if you want to be in Las Vegas but at the same time you're sort of annoyed by... well... _Vegas_. It's filled with ritzy estates and expensive condominiums, along with the usual pretentious coffee bars and boutiques. I'm sure plenty of decent people live there too - after all, Angelo Colasanto lived there. He had his faults, but he wasn't a bad guy when I knew him.

The Colasanto estate was set away from the city hubbub, closer to the desert. The house stood out of the landscape, huge and pale, pink in the last of the sunset. Taking advantage of the fact that Castiel still had the wheel, I reached into the back for my coat. October or not, desert nights were chilly and I was starting to feel it.

"It's for sale," I said quietly, as we pulled up to the front gates, "Angelo passed away this year, and his only granddaughter was killed in a car bombing." Because of me. This branch of the Colasanto bloodline wiped out, because of me. "She didn't have a family of her own."

"There are no other outbuildings," Castiel observed, which drew me back to the present. I let myself out of the jeep and approached the gates. I might not have had Tosh, but I had my own set of skills, and in a few seconds the iron bars slid to the side. No guard approached us as I waved for Castiel to pull inside. The guardhouses were empty. Apparently the realtor figured the walls and electronic security system would be deterrent enough.

Once Castiel had the jeep in park, I circled to the driver's side window and folded my arms on the sill. "No, there's no other outbuildings above ground," I said, "but I did a sweep of this place the last time I was here and I picked up some interesting energy readings coming from _under_ground. Nobody else noticed, so I let it be. We just have to find the entrance." I flicked the handle and swung the door open. "Come on. Time to test those spidey senses of yours."

Castiel narrowed his eyes, in a look I was beginning to understand as confusion rather than irritation. "I don't understand."

"Let's see who finds the tech first," I challenged, "or do you just have a life signs detector?"

"I have no 'detectors,'" Castiel replied, and I realized that the narrowed eyes could mean either or both. He stood with a hand on the door, managing to look freshly starched in spite of the blue jeans.

"Then how did you know the Leviathan wasn't in the Hub?"

Castiel gave me a long-suffering glare. I clapped him on the shoulder. "All right, so show me. Here's your chance to make a believer out of me."

He snorted. "Even if I were capable of miracles, Captain Jack Harkness, faith is not created that way."

"We're not talking about faith here, Halo. We're talking about you showing me what you can do. Or are your batteries still dead?" I liked needling him, and it got results. Sue me.

Castiel bristled. He walked around the car door and turned his back on me. I grabbed the keys from the jeep ignition and shut the door, letting him have what I assumed was a pout. He was still facing away from me, hands in his pockets and giving me the silent treatment when I finished up. I was half a beat away from saying something when he spoke.  
"The storage facility is roughly eighty meters below the surface. It appears to have at least one entrance directly from the house. The other is outside the walls. I see power signatures extending beyond the property boundary on nearly all sides."

I needed a minute to let that sink in. "Yeah," I said at last, for lack of a wittier comeback, "But I bet you don't know what color-"

"The walls are painted an industrial gray," Castiel interrupted, and turned to look at me.

I grinned. "Show off. All right, lead on."

We started across the courtyard, Castiel in the lead, moving right to the front door. I had to smile at that, too. I could already tell I was going to like Castiel's style. Very direct. In my line of work, you can get into most places if you just move like you know where you're going.

For a brief instant, I thought back on those orders Tosh left for me in the database. I remembered the envelope; remembered it was addressed only to her. She'd stayed late that night, long after everyone else went off. What had she felt, reading that? And what did it mean for Castiel?

I reminded myself that I shouldn't think about that too much. Whatever it meant (and it could mean a lot of things), I had my orders for a reason. I'd seen my own handwriting. That was one of only three sets of handwriting I recognized well enough to believe, and I'd certainly known that when I left it.

Castiel tried the door. It was locked, of course. I'm not the kind to waste time picking locks, but before I could kick it in, he opened up his hand a few inches from the handle. It clicked, and the door swung in obediently on its own steam.  
All right, yes. I was impressed. "Don't take this the wrong way, but when this is over, I have some scans I want to run on you."

"Would the outcome of these scans increase your faith?"

"Not a bit," I chuckled, following Castiel inside, "But they'll satisfy my prurient curiosity."

"Then your 'prurient curiosity' will simply have to go unsatisfied," Castiel replied. I heard the lightest lilt of a tease in his voice, I swear I did, and that just made me grin even harder.

"Would you change your answer if I said 'yes?'"

Castiel's outstretched hand halted me. "I believe we've tripped the security system," he said, head tipping up like a dog trying to catch a faint sound. I glanced at the keypad just inside the door and agreed; it hadn't gone off yet, but was counting down.

"On it," I said, and moved to the panel. Taking control of a twenty-first century computer was a matter of a few well-timed button punches, and in a few seconds I had the system disarmed. "Hah."

Predictably, Castiel hadn't noticed. He'd moved further into the house, out of sight, and I had to follow the sound of footsteps to catch up. I found him standing in front of a large marble fireplace, flanked by a pair of angels holding up the mantle. He was looking at the sculptures with intense concentration.

"Angelo, do not tell me you went the _Temple of Doom_ route," I knelt to feel around the statuary for a draft or an exposed crack, "Harrison Ford was just not that hot in a leather jacket. I liked him much better in chaps."  
"The entrance isn't here," Castiel said, still looking at the statues.

"Then what are we doing?"

"These angels were sculpted in your likeness."

Stunned, I took a closer look at the nearest statue. Sure enough, I recognized my own face - or at least the shape was right. I'd never worn that expression in my life. At least I didn't think I had. "Huh. Now that's devotion. Angelo, you romantic old geezer," I swatted the hip of the statue lightly and stood up.

"I find it somewhat disturbing," Castiel observed, "and ironic." When I peeled my gaze off the statues to look at him, he was turning away.

"What? Disturbing? Why? Didn't anyone ever carve you a statue?"

"No." Castiel's voice was flat and surprisingly fierce, "it fringes upon worship. And I am not God." He glared at me. I glared back, mostly just to keep the eye contact.

"I sense something more going on here," I raised my brows at him, "but it'll have to-"

Castiel's head snapped up and my wrist strap beeped a warning at the same time.

"There's someone on the grounds," I said.

"A Leviathan," Castiel agreed. He moved to the tapestry at the left-hand side of the fireplace and swept it aside, revealing a blank wall.

"I don't understand. The entrance is here," Castiel insisted.

I glanced at my wrist. "It's on the grounds, headed towards the house. It knows we're here. Can you open the wall?"

For once, Castiel did something I asked him to. But try as he might, the door wouldn't budge for him.

"I don't under_stand_," Castiel repeated.

The red blip of life glided slowly closer to where we stood. I tore my eyes away from the screen and cast wildly for an exit other than the one leading to the foyer. No luck. What was wrong with this guy? Even the rooms in the Clue mansion had at least two exits!

We could go out the windows, I thought, if we had to. But I'd rather not alert the intruders to our location any more than we already had. Maybe Castiel had enough juice to pop us out of there and back to safety-

-I could not believe I was even contemplating angel teleportation as a viable option.

The front door rattled. At least we had the good sense to lock it behind us.

Scanning the room for heavy objects to throw at the windows, my eyes skated one more time over the statues flanking the fireplace, and an unusual detail of their construction made me take a closer look once more. Their hands weren't carved smoothly into the corniced mantle they supported. Instead, they held up short, square columns that in turn held up the mantle. And right above their fingertips were large, noticeable crevices in the stonework. The statues weren't actually supporting anything. They were free-floating. They could be _moved_.

"You were an _Indiana Jones_ fan!" I laughed, and attacked the fireplace. A good hard shove on the chest of the right angel pushed it smoothly, silently back. There was a click inside the wall where Castiel stood holding the tapestry, and a panel slid back with a pressurized _whoosh_ worthy of a science fiction flick.

The front door rattled again and I waved Castiel through the panel like a drill sergeant. I felt along the inside wall for the button I knew was there, pressed it, and breathed out with relief when the panel _whooshed_ back into place, leaving us in total dark.

I heard Castiel's footsteps shuffling away, and I snapped a hand out to drag him back.

I got the pocket of his jeans. The back pocket.

I did mention it was dark, right? As in, couldn't see my hand in front of my face? Guess I've just got an innate sense for these things. Castiel crowded into me, apparently having no concept of personal space. He was so close I could breathe him in. He smelled about as human as anybody else who's been driving all day - sort of like sunshine and metal, with the added chemical scent of a new shirt. I realized I was breathing on his neck. I also didn't care.

But no flirting. _No. __**Flirting.**_

Did it still count as breaking the rules if I skipped right to the making out?

But that isn't how I operate. I limit my field to informed, willing partners only. There's plenty of them out there, after all.  
Then I felt someone's hand moving down my side, and I was pretty sure it wasn't the Leviathan. The thickness of my coat blunted the sensation, but I'm pretty good at spotting wandering fingers by now.

And then Castiel was breathing on my neck. He inhaled to say something, but right about then the Leviathan - showing none of Castiel's skill at breaking and entering - kicked the front door in. I jumped at the sound and suddenly that hand petting my side was under my coat and around my back.

"I'll transport us to safety if it becomes necessary," Castiel murmured, taking a tighter grip on me. I understood that I wasn't being groped. Castiel had declared himself my bodyguard - for the good of the world, you understand - and was prepared to carry me off.

I'm _not_ a damsel in distress. I _make_ the rules. And I can damn well protect _myself_.

So I ignored the orders, grabbed the back of Castiel's neck, and kissed him.

I had no idea what I was getting into. But seriously, how many people have kissed an angel? With those kinds of statistics, I think I had a right to be a little overwhelmed.

I could hear the Leviathan moving around the first floor. I knew it'd be in the room outside this wall in minutes. But none of that mattered for a few hot seconds, because Castiel - apparently - had just been waiting for an opening.

I like kissing. It's one of my favorite things to do. It's different every time, and it's almost always a surprise. I've had kisses of all flavors of emotion. I've certainly had people kiss me like they thought they owned me; once or twice they actually did - on paper, anyway. Understandably, though, none of them were quite like this. Castiel kissed with possessive heat and desperation; open, wet, and eager. Better yet, he clearly didn't have a clue what he was doing, but he made up for that with pure enthusiasm. I caught a corner of my mind wondering what else we could get up to in the dark here.

Then it was over, way sooner than I was in the mood to let it go.

Castiel's cheek rested against mine afterward. We breathed together, shallow and soft, and listened. Footsteps thudded heavily in the exterior room. Minutes of enforced silence passed like hours. The floorboards squeaked near the fireplace, and I held my breath.

An electronic version of Vivaldi's _"Spring"_ eased through the panel, cut off ten seconds later as the Leviathan answered its phone.

My jaw tightened. _Rex_. The voice on the outside was _Rex_.

"Heh. Wondered when I was gonna hear back from you," it said, warm and aggressive, "yeah, whatever. Don't try to sell me that put-upon housewife crap, Gwen. You know you'd rather be here."

It said _Gwen_.

Castiel's arm around my waist was a steel band. I'd been struggling before I realized what was happening.

"Nah," the Leviathan went on, "no big deal. Guy's a pain in the ass as usual. I called you because he hasn't been around in a few days. Not sure what case he's working. Wondered if you'd heard from him." A pause, presumably for Gwen on the other end of the line.

"Okay, yeah, fine. I get it. Anything weird shows up, you'll call. Yes ma'am. Oh. Right. You mean you haven't killed the kid yet?"

Castiel kissed me again, hard and sharp. I fought him briefly, until I realized what he was doing. The Leviathan knew we were in the house. It was trying to draw me out, letting me know Gwen and her family was in danger.

With no other outlet, I poured all the fear and rage into Castiel that I would have spent completely blowing the plan. I'm sure I drew blood, at least once. And he took it, just like that.

Rex's voice receded, as the Leviathan moved away from the room, and Castiel released me. A few minutes later, when the footsteps did not return, I dug a torch from the pocket of my coat, and we headed down the stairs in silence. Though there was a light switch on the wall, the last thing I wanted was light shining through a crack in the door panel at the top of the stairs. Did I think Angelo would have thought of that? Yes. Did I want to bet our safety on it? No.

"We know a few things about the enemy now," I said, as we arrived at the first landing. The stairs took a hard right and dropped away into the dark, "their hearing and their sense of smell is comparable to a human's, at least when they look like one. That thing was about three steps away from us and didn't even blink. Makes tactics a little more straightforward."

"Additionally, they don't seem to possess any diagnostics tools of their own," Castiel added, "yet." The shadows created by my torch pooled under his brows, adding an extra shade of sinister meaning to his words.

"They get them in the future?"

"Among many other things, yes. However, the Leviathan knew of our plans tonight. Its arrival time suggests we were followed."

"Good point," I grimaced, "It's probably going through the jeep right now. Glad we got everything critical moved before we left California."

"Once we've secured the device, I'll scout the Leviathan's location and-" Castiel trailed off. He tilted his head back to survey the ceiling thoughtfully, then frowned. "-it's blocking me."

"The Leviathan?"

"No. The _structure_. I can't sense anything beyond these walls."

I put my hand on the wall, although my wrist strap wasn't capable of testing samples by touch. All it could do was tell me what trace minerals were in the air, emitted by the walls. And as far as my wrist strap was concerned, this looked like a concrete bomb shelter, painted in - you guessed it - industrial gray.

"If it's a shield, it's not putting out a power signature-whoa. But everything else in here is. The energy readings in here are off the scale! There's no way the U.S. could ignore this. This place is lit up like a Christmas tree!" Ignoring Castiel for the moment, I galloped down the remaining stairs and through a short hallway, sliding my free hand along the wall in search of a light switch.

"It wasn't producing those readings outside," Castiel reminded me.

"No," I agreed, laughing, "it wasn't. I wonder why?" Then the beam of my torch collided with a sight that took my breath away.

A giant cog, blocking our path. In a previous life, it marked the entrance to Torchwood 3.

"No," I repeated, for a different reason. I'd walked through that door for decades without really looking at it. In Cardiff, it was a piece of the landscape, only notable when it didn't work. And now I couldn't bring myself to touch it. If this was the first taste of whatever waited inside, I wasn't sure I wanted to see.

But I haven't been a coward in a very long time.

With a familiarity that ached, I found the wall switch and activated the door. The cog rolled aside, revealing a room bathed in warm light.

A knot of anxiety that had been building up... uncoiled. I'd been, okay, maybe a little more worried about what I was going to find down here than I liked to admit. Reconstructing a space to resemble the Cardiff Hub would have simply been a matter of time, money and will. Angelo clearly had all three.

It wasn't a replica. It was better.

And... worse.

"Oh, Angelo," I said, keeping my voice hushed in reverence for the room, "you should have worked at the Smithsonian. You could've shown them a thing or two."

Pieces of the Hub had been carefully preserved in a roughly accurate reconstruction of the original. Battered, burned sections of the Rift Manipulator occupied shelves of a central clear cylinder, soaring upward from the center of the room. It was assembled in the wrong order, but only someone who lived with it would have noticed.

Around it were shards of catwalks, fragments of stairs and railings, the splintered remains of Tosh's workstation, and other wreckage sealed in cubes and domes and spheres. Some of the higher display cases seemed to float free on wires or thin supports, roughly in their appropriate places. Bits of a spiral staircase curled upward in a loose arc. It looked somewhere between an exploded diagram and… an actual explosion. Or a carefully deconstructed corpse.

A coffee cup, somehow miraculously unharmed, sat next to the mangled remains of the coffee machine. One thin line of blue glaze curled up the outside from bottom to top. My chest tightened.

I reminded myself that Ianto hadn't died in an explosion. He'd gone down spraying bullets at a monster; protecting the children of Earth to the last. This wasn't him. If there was gore splattered on anything here, it was mine. _I'd_ died here, _not_ Ianto.

Housed in illuminated insets along the walls surrounding the Hub wreckage were bits and pieces of tech. Some of it was unrecognizable, but some of it had apparently been deep enough in storage, or protected enough by their housings to survive. Not... quite ready to leave the coffee machine just yet, I stood next to it while I activated the Torchwood software on my wrist and gathered information from our databases on the Portable Prison Cell's elemental makeup and energy output.

What, you think my agents spent _all_ their time chasing Blowfish and Weevils and flirting with each other? _Please_.

Initializing a full sweep of the room, I waited. If it wasn't here, we'd have to start over. But it would be here. It _had_ to be here.

The scan stopped cycling and locked onto the device with an encouraging b-deep. "Hah! _There_ you are. We've got a live one, Cas." GPS coordinates were useless this far underground, but I turned on the secondary search function and followed the increasing beeps like a metal detector. It led me along the walls of cubbies, increasing in intensity until it abruptly died away.

I walked backward. The signal grew frantic again. Forward, and it slowed. Moving back until the signal reached its peak, I looked up.

"This row," I called back to Castiel, patting the sill of the bottom cubbie with a view to hauling myself up like a climbing wall at a gym, "it's up here!"

Five cubbies up and discovering the going more treacherous than I'd anticipated, I turned at the sound of something heavy rolling across the floor. A steel library ladder on tracks glided towards me along the wall, guided by Castiel, hand on a low rung. He looked up at me.

"This way's more fun," I said defensively, not above reaching out to catch the ladder anyway.

"I believe you should meet Dean," Castiel said, sounding amused, "you and he seem to share similar tastes in entertainment."

"I don't know what surprises me more," I grunted, following the beeps of the scan up the ladder, "the fact that you have a friend like me, or that you have friends."

"Then again," Castiel seemed to rethink the idea, "Dean would likely shoot you."

"Oh, jealous boyfriend, huh?" I teased, peering into the next cubbie. Sealed behind a plate of glass was a silver device, somewhere between a paper football and a seashell. The Portable Prison Cell. "Jackpot!"

"Dean is **not** my boyfriend," Castiel retorted fiercely, "my bond with him transcends such a profoundly inadequate label."

"That's cute, I'll have to remember that one," I chuckled, pushing on the glass. The ladder vibrated and I looked down. Castiel, who had been obligingly holding the ladder steady, looked like he was ready to come all the way up here and punch me. "Easy there, Halo. Didn't mean anything by that."

"I love him," Castiel snapped, voice humming with strange power that shivered along my skin like static, "I am not _in love_ with him. I consider him my brother and as such, I don't appreciate your inferences to the contrary." Which said volumes about what Castiel actually felt for the guy and had rationalized away, but I knew I was already walking the line. Not that I wouldn't mind stepping over it, just to see what he'd do, but hey, I had priorities right then.

"All right. No more inferences to the contrary will be made. Scout's honor." I even gave him the two-fingered salute for good measure, and turned back to popping the cubbie open. In the end - may Angelo forgive me - I just bashed the glass in with the shaft of my torch.

Have fun with that line. I know I did.

Evading the jagged glass, I pocketed the device and started down the ladder. Castiel still looked mad enough to spit bullets, but he calmed down when I handed over my loot for inspection. "All right, so we contain them with this. It needs charged by now, but I've got that covered. Let's go. We're on borrowed time; that Leviathan could have called for backup by now."

"They cannot be allowed to find this facility," Castiel said, looking up. "Any _one_ of these items in their possession could have catastrophic consequences."

"My thoughts exactly," I said, taking the device from his hands and tucking it back into my pocket, "Nice alliteration, by the way. Still can't teleport?"

"No."

"Right. Maybe that's for the best anyway, since you said it could attract attention. Didn't you say something about a second exit, outside the walls?"

Castiel closed his eyes. He turned slowly in place while I watched.

"Ah," Castiel gestured across the room, "this way." And off he went, like a power walker in the Boston Marathon.  
The central room was just the showpiece. Branching off from there were entire display rooms. Everything was accessible, organized, and neatly notated; some even had name plaques. There were inane things, unrecognizable things, burned tatters of books and blackened metal boxes. There were disguises, costumes, clothing from all of the eras I'd passed through. If Torchwood ever merited a museum, I'd have wanted Angelo to curate it. But a Torchwood museum would mean Torchwood was dead, and that wasn't happening on my watch. Not now.

What with the impending destruction of the world and all, I didn't have the luxury of time to examine how I felt about Angelo constructing this place, but I knew I needed to. I could feel the pressure of it building up inside.

"Jack," I heard behind me unexpectedly, and turned. Castiel faced the wall, transfixed, where a series of coats marched on headless mannequins, ordered according to decade. An American Naval officer's dress uniform, a singed British Army jacket, and the remains of a rabbit fur coat were only a few of the items there. And at the end, next to a perfectly tailored dinner jacket I'd prefer to forget… was a trench coat.

I glanced from Castiel to the coat and back. "Never fit me right," I temporized with a smile, "can't believe something like this made it through." Castiel didn't answer immediately, though I knew he'd heard me.

"This is yours?" He asked, stiffly at attention, eyes all for the coat.

"It was in the Hub," I shrugged. It wasn't a lie. "You want it? Might need it. Where we're going, October actually feels like October."

When he went another minute or so without speaking, I slid back the glass and climbed into the case. It was a private collection - of course Angelo wouldn't have bothered with locks. I could feel hungry eyes on me while I moved into the bright, clean light and pulled the article of clothing from its dummy. The fabric was only a little stiff from its tenure in the case. I held it up to my nose and inhaled, before I tossed it out to Castiel. Though it must have been preserved in a trunk in the lower levels of the Hub, it still smelled faintly of smoke. Or maybe it was just my imagination.

"Here," I said, flinging it into Castiel's arms, "even though I just remembered you don't get cold. Compliments of Torchwood Cardiff."

He caught it, staring at the fabric in his hands with absolutely no expression on his face at all.

"Come on," I prodded, "we've got more walking to do before we're out of here."

Castiel slipped on the coat and followed without a word.

We went down another short flight of stairs, which turned back on itself and opened out into a sterile, tiled room with a low ceiling. Compared to the rest of the facility, it looked cold and surgical.

Then I noticed the rows of steel doors lining the left-hand wall, and froze. "That's not possible."

Castiel stood a few paces away from me, also examining the wall. "There are human corpses inside these drawers," he said, confirming my initial guess.

"But the morgue went up with everything else in the explosion," I said, as if somehow that could negate the reality of those neat rows, "the cleanup didn't get started until _days_ later. Any pods that survived would have been offline. Thawed. Wouldn't they?" A treacherous little surge of hope choked me until I couldn't swallow. I started opening drawers. If Gray was inside, even if he was beyond saving, I had to know.

Well before I found Gray, I found Castiel.

He was pale and still, frost in his five o'clock shadow, sealed up in his own private capsule with its time-lock still ticking down the seconds. Of course. If he hadn't made it all the way through to 2012, we wouldn't be here.

In my defense, I tried to get the drawer closed before Castiel got a good look at it. After all, I still had my orders - such as they were.

Castiel's hand closed over mine, stopping me from sliding the tray back into the refrigeration unit on its casters. We stood staring at one another across the body, while the unit exhaled cold, dry air over us both and the LED display at the head of the capsule marked the time.

"It's got to go back in," I said, lifting my chin in an open challenge, "if it doesn't, bad things happen."

Castiel's eyes dropped to the peaceful, chilly blue-white face that mirrored his own, and back up to me. "Bad things," he echoed, his own features a still mask.

"Yeah, Castiel, bad things. Now let go."

"Captain Jack Harkness," Castiel said slowly, "tell me why this is here."

"No."

"Tell me," he pushed the tray into the drawer, closed the door gently, and advanced on me like a stalking predator, "or I will take it from your mind."

"You don't need to know. It's not important." I stared him down, heart thudding so hard that I could feel it in my neck. "Getting out of here is important. Putting the Leviathan back where they belong is important. Saving your friends? That's important. None of that has anything to do with this."

Castiel shoved me into the wall and pinned me, forearm against my throat. "**TELL ME,**" he barked, and for the second time I felt the power in him wash over me. And maybe, just maybe, I started to believe. A little.

Angel? That's crap. _Soldier of God_, now, I might buy that. "Get it yourself," I gasped.

He hesitated. I felt it.

"Can't?" I needled.

He backed off and turned away. I sagged against the wall, rubbing my throat. "Don't feel too bad. Nobody's been able to do it so far."

Castiel put his hand on the drawer that held his body, then pulled it away. "I didn't stop for lack of ability," he said, sounding defeated, and moved to the exit at the other end of the room, "finish your investigation, and I'll lead you out."

I watched him go. Suddenly, inexplicably, finding Gray's body seemed selfish. I patted an unopened drawer and followed Castiel, still massaging the spot where his forearm banged my windpipe. "It'll keep. They teach Jeet Kun Do up there in Heaven?"

"No," Castiel answered. He didn't elaborate, not that I expected him to.

"By the way?" I said, apropos of nothing, "Call me Jack."

The lights flicked off behind us.

* * *

The second entrance turned out to be at least a mile northeast beyond the property walls, in the craggy, brush-covered foothills between Henderson and Las Vegas Bay. Quite the walk. Good for bad moods, at least. By the time we waded out into the thorns, it was well after midnight. The lights of civilization glittered at us from below.

I checked the energy signature coming from the estate once more before we left. Curiosity had been niggling at me now and again and left me a little unsettled, especially considering Castiel's inability to leave the underground bunker. I watched the readout on my wrist, comparing it with previous readouts taken underground. "Ah-ha! I think I solved the mystery of how Angelo's little collection managed to stay hidden from the military. Besides just not appearing as a threat, of course."

Castiel turned away from pulling the small, sand-colored door closed. "I can no longer sense the enormous energy output from the archive."

"Exactly. Whatever's in those walls is designed to reflect only specific kinds of energy, Cas. It cuts down on how much we can see out here versus what it's actually doing. We had a couple pieces of camouflage technology that could be programmed to do that. If Angelo got hold of one of those, it's a short leap to camouflaging a whole building. I wonder why he let a little leak through though. Scientists just not advanced enough to reverse engineer something like that?" I mused.

"Reflecting all forms of energy would result in a very obvious dark spot," Castiel replied.

"I should learn to stop underestimating that guy," I muttered, "but my guess is that whatever it is, it was reflecting you, too. So you couldn't just… phase through the walls, or whatever it is you do. Come on," I gestured with a broad wave for Castiel to follow me, ignoring what had to be a glare, "let's get going. I don't want to be stuck out here when the sun comes up."

We ditched the jeep. We had to. Maybe we could have gone back to the Colasanto estate, but by then - considering what Castiel told me about the Leviathan - a tracking chip hidden in the electrical harness would be the least of the worrisome things they could have done. That meant my laptop was a wash as well.

At least I still had my coat.

We spent the night walking back to Henderson. I insisted. I was hungry, and we needed transportation, but all of those things could wait. We weren't in immediate danger, and I needed to process. Normally, I'd prefer to do that alone, but Castiel's current mood made walking with him fairly lonely.

We had a device capable of containing one Leviathan in a human body. One. Castiel was sort of fuzzy on the numbers we faced. Plus, what happened to the person? Were they still in there? If we tossed a Leviathan into Purgatory, was the person stuck there with them? And just how, exactly, _did_ one go about 'tossing a Leviathan into Purgatory?'

"How hard is it to open Purgatory?" I asked. Castiel glanced at me, the faint light of stars just barely making his profile legible. I had no idea that it could be this dark, so close to Vegas.

Castiel sighed. "Extremely difficult," he answered, "there are… some very specific parameters that must be met."

"How specific?"

"It must occur during a lunar eclipse. And it requires the blood of a virgin, as well as that of a creature from Purgatory."

"You have that?"

He looked away. "No, although it shouldn't be too difficult to acquire. The Leviathan are creatures from Purgatory. They already have my memories. If they contact me in the process of acquiring their blood, it will make little difference."

"They don't have your memories of Angelo's Torchwood museum," I reminded him, "or the device we're planning to use on them. I think we need a Plan B here, Cas."

Then I remembered Tosh's message, attached to the Torchwood database search results.

"Wouldn't it just be easier to let somebody else do the legwork?" I asked, thumbing over the ridges of the Portable Prison Cell in my pocket, "Go back to the last time the door opened? You can travel through time."

"Bringing one other person is taxing enough. Carrying Leviathan as well..." Castiel shook his head.

"How many Leviathan are we talking?"

"I don't know."

"Mm." I let the conversation lapse, considering which of several avenues to take. "But it _is_ within your abilities to at least take _me_ back to the last time the door opened?"

"With one qualification, yes," Castiel answered. I heard the caution in his voice.

"Which qualification is that?"

"I am still operating on a fraction of my typical power."

"Right," I nodded, "to keep the bigwigs from catching you with your hand in the till."

"I'm not sure what that means," Castiel pushed through a thick stand of brittle thorns to stay abreast of me. Seriously. Just plowed right into it, when he could have gone around. "I'm doing so in order to avoid recognition."

"That's what I said," I shrugged. Over the crunch of weeds, I heard Castiel's frustrated exhale. My grin widened.

"My point is that I'll require an external source of power to ensure our departure," Castiel said.

"A backup battery?"

"No," he was silent a few moments, thoughtful, before adding, "I believe the appropriate phrase is 'fill the tank.'" And then he glanced at me, and I had the sneaking suspicion that whatever he was considering, I was involved. He stopped, and I stopped too a few steps later, looking back at him.

"I'm not going to like whatever you have to do to fill the tank, am I?" I said, tipping my head at his continuing silence.

"I don't like it either," Castiel replied, advancing on me now, "but it's the only way. I need to touch your soul."

That set off all sorts of personal alarm bells. I'm not the kind of guy to back off, but I thrust out a hand to keep Castiel at a distance. "Whoa. I don't know about you, but I expect dinner before I let someone do that. It's called standards." The only response that got was a perplexed tilt of his head, and I sighed, saddened to have sacrificed yet another sex joke on the altar of Castiel's sobriety. "Sorry to have to be the one to break this to you, Castiel, but I don't have a soul."

"Yes," Castiel tucked his hands into his pockets, "you do. I've seen someone functioning without a soul, Jack. Have you ever resisted taking the path of expedience, because your morality or conscience prompted you?"

"Bad for business; I like to keep that on the down low," I smiled, and shook my head. "Like I've said before-faith? Souls? God? Love to have this conversation with you, just not now."

Castiel didn't answer at first. He just looked at me. It was really too dark to see if he was looking with pity or worry or exasperation, but his voice was definitely a little warmer when he spoke up in the end. "Jack, I need to borrow your innate energy, of which you have a great deal. It will hurt you, which I regret, and I will have to do it very carefully. But it is the only means I have of gaining the necessary strength."

More alarm bells. I kept my hand up. "And by 'innate energy,' you're referring to-"

"Your soul," Castiel translated, sounding harried.

"My life force," I corrected.

He shrugged. "Call it what you will. The energy remains the same."

And that was how I ended up sitting in a Vegas wasteland with an angel's hand shoved underneath my ribcage. I suppose there were worse places it could be.

On the plus side, he did have to sit in my lap to do it.

Having Castiel reach inside me was excruciating, but I've been in more pain. It was the kind of pain that actually brings a couple seconds' worth of mental high, before even the endorphins are overwhelmed. I've been sliced open. I've had my stomach removed forcibly from my abdomen by a close-range shotgun blast. After a while all you can do is howl, because no other part of your body obeys you. Believe me, I did that. Luckily though, I convinced Castiel to let me lean on his shoulder before he started. From there, I had a fantastic view of his hand disappearing up to the forearm in my gut. I probably left him a little deaf in one ear, but I kept enough of my focus to see and remember what he was doing to me.

The spot where his arm had breached my stomach gave off shards of golden light, glowing like a small sun. In seconds the light intensified, until all I could make out were indefinite shapes. The glow spread between us to fill the space, flickering out into the night. It was beautiful. Even in the middle of all that pain, I could see how beautiful it was.

I pride myself on my ability to keep calm even in stressful circumstances, but after a minute or two of constant agony my motor control broke down.

Castiel let me go after that and I collapsed on his shoulder. He put his arms around me and yeah, I figured I deserved a hug after that.

"You have a... very powerful soul," I heard Castiel murmur.

Sweating, exhausted, and humming like I'd just run face-first into an electrical field, I still couldn't resist. "Bet you say that to all the boys. Did it take?"

Didn't realize he had his mouth against my forehead until I felt him smile. He pulled away to nod. "The procedure was successful, albeit I was forced to move more slowly, due to the increased risk. I am sorry for that." Warm air brushed my lips as Castiel spoke, stark against the chill. The thought of just… leaning forward the inch or so necessary to reach his mouth was tempting. There's nothing like kissing on a crisp, cold night. But the circumstances were different now. I knew better.

"If it worked, that's all that matters," I said firmly, and leaned back on my hands. I expected the muscles around my navel to protest, considering the recent trauma. To my surprise, they didn't complain. I'm used to healing quickly, but usually not _that_ quickly. Castiel shuffled backwards on his knees and rose. He didn't offer me a hand up, not that I'd have taken it anyway. Probably.

From the ground looking up, I had to admit it: even with jeans and a pullover, the trench coat _worked_.

"The issue of how to transport our captives remains," Castiel said with concern as I worked out getting upright again - concern that was clearly more directed at my sudden woozy stagger than the Leviathan. I shook my head at him hard and propped my hands on my knees, pride insisting I'd get my land legs again without his help. I should have known better by then, but who am I kidding?

An iron hand closed around my wrist, and Castiel sidled up to me, looping my arm around his neck. The arm closest to my side went around my waist with casual efficiency, and he straightened.

"Not your first rodeo, huh?" I taunted.

"I injured Dean Winchester so badly that he could not walk unsupported," Castiel growled, and I was pretty sure it wasn't directed at me, "My ability to heal him had been stripped, and it was important to return him promptly to his brother. So, no, Jack. This is not 'my first rodeo.'"

A lot to take in, there. "Where'd you learn that? I didn't figure you'd get it. And I thought you liked Dean."

"I do."

"You do that a lot? Beat up people you like?"

"Only if they deserve it," Castiel replied curtly.

We walked like that for a few minutes. It took me longer than I liked to get back to full steam. Forcibly reminded at every unsteady step, a corner of my mind marveled over what I'd just done. Sure, I had orders to get the guy to a certain place and go from there, and I'd do whatever it took. But while I had my doubts about what he was and where he really came from, I realized I trusted him. I hadn't just let him shove his hand in my gut because of those orders. I'd done it because I believed he needed to, and that he wouldn't hurt me - wouldn't _really_ hurt me - if he didn't have to. Gwen was the only other person I'd give that kind of trust to, verbatim. Ianto wouldn't hurt me, period. Gwen would if it was necessary - kill me even, permanently - and that was the vibe I got off of Castiel. Somehow, that made the order not to save him a little easier to bear.

But not that much easier.

"You know, I had a thought Cas, regarding this whole Leviathan thing," I withdrew my arm from his shoulder. He let me, considering that I was no longer swaying like a drunken sailor, "Why do we need to catch them _here_? Can't we stop them from ever getting free?" I couldn't force him to the deduction he needed to make. If I prodded him too hard, I was pretty sure I'd blow my cover. Everything was already on uncertain ground after he'd gotten a look at his face in the freezer.

Silence descended while Castiel appeared to give this some serious thought. I put my hand on my stomach in the meantime, looking down for about the fifth time at the spot where Castiel's hand had been. As collecting life energy went, Castiel's approach was sort of unorthodox. And where'd he go to get at it? Was there some sort of central point under my ribs where it all cycled through, like a second heart? Or was that whole business just an unnecessarily excruciating symbolic gesture? Not that overfeeding Abaddon with life energy had been a picnic.

"In order to stop the Leviathan, I would need to be more discriminating in my-" Castiel paused, and I wondered what he'd just self-censored, "-selection upon opening Purgatory. Even then, their escape would still be a potential risk."

"So just stop yourself from opening Purgatory," I suggested casually, taking my hands from my midsection by will and pushing them into my pockets instead. Honestly, it bothered me. Worse than having a scab. At least a scab you can pick at. Not that I've had one in, oh, a couple millennia.

Oh, wait. Yes I have. Now I'll have to find some other jaded line to use. Damn.

"I can't do that, Jack," Castiel replied. He didn't sound sad. He sounded desolate. Lonely. I looked up at him, distracted from the terrain and the still tingling non-injury.

"Why not?"

"As I've said, without sufficient power, I will be unable to keep the Winchesters safe from Raphael's preoccupation with restarting the Apocalypse. Purgatory is still the only option."

"Whoa, wait, Apocalypse? With capital letters?" My question earned me another long stare. Rolling my eyes and narrowly resisting a sigh of my own, I stuffed my curiosity into a box for later. "Thought I had that handled. Okay, scratch that question. But you and me?" I gestured between us, "We're so having a talk once this is all over."

"Of course," Castiel replied, as if it was what he'd intended all along.

"So pretend I believe you. You're saying we have to open that door."

"Even if it were an option," Castiel replied tightly, "stopping myself without potentially doing irreparable harm to the universe would be difficult."

"Not that hard," I shrugged, "I could just shoot you. Voila. You don't cross your own timeline, and Twenty-Ten-You can't open the door."

"Not opening the door is _not_ an option," he reminded me, "additionally, you can't damage me - even temporarily - with mere bullets."

I shook my head. "You volunteer way too much information, Cas. Ever heard of the element of surprise?"

"Not when it involves my own teammates."

A few minutes later, the brush gave way to a paved road with a wide gravel shoulder. I looked down at my coat and grimaced at the burrs coating the wool. "I'm sending the Colasantos my dry cleaning bill."

Castiel went quiet again as we turned onto the road, silence persisting all the way to Henderson still a quarter mile away. We found a set of wheels - a battered eighties pickup, not my usual choice - and headed out of town as quickly and quietly as we could. Still ravenous, I stopped off at a 24-hour Wendy's drive through on the way. Feeling sort of sorry for Castiel for no identifiable reason, I bought him a cheeseburger too, and passed the sack over to him. When I finished paying the cashier - careful not to let our skin touch - and turned back to Castiel, he had one cheeseburger open on his lap and was busy examining the other.

"Hey! Hands off the goods, Halo!" I protested, reaching out to take the sandwich from his hands, "You only get one!" He tossed me an insulted look like a wet cat and re-wrapped the cheeseburger on his lap.

"I was inspecting the beef for contaminants," Castiel explained, offering me the paper-wrapped package, "The Leviathan have already begun contaminating the ingredients of several restaurants like these. If unchecked, by 2012 the results will be global and catastrophic."

I chewed and swallowed before I spoke, taking the time to process the information. "You keep saying that word, 'catastrophic,'" I said, nudging the cheeseburger he held back at him with my forearm, "No, eat it. That's for you."

"I don't require food," Castiel's answer was prim. He moved to put the uneaten sandwich back into the bag.

"Then eat for the sake of trying something different," I prodded.

"I don't _need_ 'something different,' Jack," Castiel snapped at me, turning towards the passenger window with about as much grace as a moody teenager, "I need to _fix_ this, before it gets any further out of control."

"News flash," I shamelessly borrowed one of Rex's lines, "it's already _out_ of control, Castiel. _Pull it together._"

He glared at me. I hit the brakes and glared back at him. Even this late at night, Henderson was moderately busy. Cars honked and swerved around us.

"You have people depending on you," I reminded him, "you want to have a tantrum, do it on your own time."

For a beat or two, Castiel looked murderous. Then he dropped his eyes, gaze flickering away as if searching the floorboards for an answer.

"And eat the cheeseburger," I nudged it at him again, peeling the wrapper down a little further on mine before I stepped on the gas, "lots of salt and saturated fat, guaranteed to put you in a better mood. The only thing that works better in this day and age is a controlled substance. Well, and me, but I should really keep both hands on the wheel."

He didn't get it.

I didn't figure he would.

I finished my own meal and flipped on the radio to drown out the deafening silence. Normally I'd rather talk, but conversations with Castiel - to be honest - had gotten a little too tense and frustrating, even for me. Then, as we turned off a business access route, I heard paper rustling. Curiosity must have won out.

"What do you think?" I asked, a minute or two later. When Castiel didn't answer, I checked to see how he was doing. He had his eyes closed, brow ridged with concentration, cheeseburger frozen less than half an inch from his mouth. Apparently realizing I kept looking his way, he put the sandwich down and explained.

"I have consumed food similar to this before," he said.

"Ha! So you do eat!"

"Under certain circumstances, yes," Castiel agreed, but the tone of his voice made me blink. That tone was the kind I'd heard from prisoners of war.

I weighed the options. Sure, I could have just called him on it, but believe it or not, I'm not insensitive. Not completely insensitive, anyway; only mostly. Finally, I twitched the volume down on the radio. "You want to talk about it?"

"It isn't a pleasant memory."

"Ah. Just cheeseburgers, or eating in general?"

Castiel considered the question, and there was that hawklike head-tilt again. "It appears to only be this food."

"Then we'll find you something else," I grinned, "in the meantime, recap. To keep moving and for lack of any other specific destination, we're headed for Kansas again. We have one fully charged angel?" Castiel nodded and I went on, "One clever and dashing hero, _also_ fully charged, and one containment device recharging as we speak. We've knocked down a couple options already: we can't stop you from opening the door, we don't have the resources to open it _again_, and we don't have the power to catch Leviathan and haul them back to the last time you opened up Purgatory. What's left?"

To be completely honest, even I wasn't sure how it would play out. None of the messages were all that detailed. A cautionary measure, probably to make sure I didn't know something I shouldn't, but as frustrating as having half a book. Castiel was silent for a good, long while. I kept the radio on low for company while he thought. In the end, it really had to be him anyway. He was the one holding the door.

"I opened Purgatory the second time to return the-" Castiel paused, "-power I had borrowed. For a period of time, the Leviathan controlled my vessel, until they were able to free themselves and disperse, utilizing the nearby water supply."

"The Leviathan were controlling you?"

"They were inside me, Jack."

There was a perfect opening in that reply, but I was too busy adjusting my assumptions to take advantage. Up until that point, I'd just assumed the Leviathan slipped out of the portal while Castiel was doing... whatever he was doing. 'Returning the power he borrowed.' "All of them?" I asked, surprised.

"All of them." Castiel's voice was grim.

"Huh."

"I mention this because - for that brief period, every creature that escaped is contained in the same place. The simplest answer would be to simply ensure that the vessel and all it contains passes through the doorway before it closes."

"Not an option," I said, so quickly after I realized what he meant that I nearly cut him off. From my periphery, I could see him glance at me. Carefully, I kept my eyes on the road.

"If I exist in Purgatory, then I am not destroyed," Castiel replied, "I can be freed."

"But even if you can, who says your payload won't come right along with you?" My hands tightened on the steering wheel, kneading along the ridges. "Trip to Purgatory's going to be a life sentence, Cas. Find another way."

Yet again, as I had countless times, I reminded myself that I had orders. Orders not to try to save Castiel. Orders to let him do his job by himself.

At the cost of damning him to a lifetime in some wasteland, alone? Why would I leave myself orders like that? What did I know? Other than myself.

I didn't know much about angels; how long they lived, what they needed, or whether or not they even wanted companionship. But the thought of spending eternity trapped by myself sounded less like Purgatory and more like Hell. I've been on some long, lonely flights before, but come on.

"You'll have to do it, Jack," Castiel was saying as I dragged my awareness back to the surface, "you know I can't be allowed to see myself. Nor should the Winchesters see me."

"This'll wipe you out," I warned him, "you do this, and maybe you'll save the world. But you won't be here. You'll change your timeline. Maybe you'll be stuck in Purgatory permanently. _Probably_ permanently."

I looked sideways just in time to catch Castiel's resolute nod. "It's a risk I can choose for myself."

"You're sure."

"Very."

"Then we'll work out the details on the way. I'll drive. Save your batteries."

Meanwhile, I was working on my own plan, putting together what I knew of the Leviathan with what Castiel could tell me about the last day he remembered. Sure, I had orders, but I wouldn't be Captain Jack Harkness if I let a few cryptic lines on a Post-It get in the way of saving lives.

Especially the hot ones.

* * *

Gwen knew not to call. She had my number, of course - in more ways than one - but she had a family to protect. Until we made some progress with the Three Families, the entire world population was a potential threat.

So when Gwen called, somewhere between Breckenridge and Silverthorne, I got a little tense.

_"Are you all right, Jack? Rex phoned yesterday, asking if I'd heard from you. I know as well as you do that Rex couldn't give a damn where you've got to or for how long."_

Everybody's so judgmental of my taste in men. Do I point out Rhys's shortcomings to Gwen? Of course I do, but the point is, do I do it as often as I _can_ and _want to_?

"Rex hasn't been himself this week," I said dryly, navigating the pickup around a long bend in the interstate. If I'd had the time to really look at it, Colorado was beautiful country. "Gwen, we've got a situation. It's dangerous. You shouldn't have called." I paused, and smiled. "Good to hear from you."

_"What's happened?"_

"Long story. Don't take any more calls from Rex. You still in that bunker of a house in Swansea?"

_"Yes. We've moved Mum in just last week."_

"Good. Get out as fast as you can. Go somewhere where there's no people. Make sure you're not followed."

_"Jack, what-?"_

"These creatures we're tangling with can steal everything about you if they touch you. Your memories, your face, everything. The one that got Rex had _me_ fooled. They have his memories now. They know where you are and they know they can use you against me."

I heard a sigh on the other end of the line. That's right, Gwen, I thought, I've gotten you into trouble again. She was all business after that, though. Good girl; she believed me with no more explanation than that. _"What do they want?"_

"I'll explain later," I said, hoping I wouldn't have to, "and forget that arsenal in the broom closet. It's useless against these things. Just, _run_, Gwen, **now**. And don't let anybody touch you."

And then I thought: what if one of them already has Rhys? What if I'm talking to one right now? In the background, I heard sounds of shuffling, and then a muffled conversation, before Gwen returned to the phone.

_"I'm off. Jack? Be safe."_

"Don't worry about me," I said, glancing sideways at Castiel, who had been openly eavesdropping the entire time, "I've got angels watching over me."

She hung up. I replayed the conversation over again, hunting for signs that she wasn't the real Gwen. Had anything given Rex away? If I hadn't already been wary, would I have known?

"I can bring her here," Castiel offered, "Gwen Cooper is a valuable asset. She could be of use."

It was tempting. "If you go to Swansea and back, how much battery will it drain? Will it get anyone's attention?"

"Retrieving her might-"

"I just want to check on her," I cut him off, "just to make sure she's not one of them. And that wherever she's going, she gets there."

And then suddenly Castiel was gone. No, I didn't jump. My startle point is much higher than that, considering how things and people around me tend to disappear with even less warning. Sitting there alone in the pickup, I realized it was the first time he'd left since he showed up. Even more concerning, I realized I'd already adapted from skepticism to a kind of... utilitarian belief system about what he said and what he could do. No, I wasn't about to start believing in angels (not his kind, anyway), or God, or the afterlife. But if I he said he could do something impossible and then did it, I was willing to trust he could do anything else that he said he could.

I trusted him just enough to use him. Just enough to not even notice, until now, that he knew Gwen's full name. A name that I knew _I_ hadn't told him.

Just a little over an hour later, with still no sign of Castiel, I pulled off the Interstate to fill up outside of Denver. I hadn't realized - and really, you think I would by now - that when a city in the Rockies says they have 'the last gas station for 100 miles,' they actually mean it. I'd been limping the pickup along on fumes and downhill grades, hoping that a store with the word 'mart' attached to the name would sell fuel.

I had no illusions of being off the grid by now, considering the Leviathan from L.A. had been able to track me all the way to Nevada. But I risked contact with the store clerk to pay cash anyway. He was bored, just out of college and clearly pissed about working a minimum wage job in a Denver backwater suburb. He didn't pay much attention to me. But I found myself watching him warily all the same.

This mission was definitely not helping my general paranoia, that's for sure.

Castiel was waiting for me at the pickup. He's not a big, imposing guy, but somehow, he made everything else seem... lesser. Mountains, sky, everything. The blue jeans, the ratty pickup, and the perpetually rumpled coat didn't matter. Whatever he was doing, he filled the space he occupied and the atmosphere around him with so much energy that the air nearly crackled. I stopped a minute on the curb of the convenience store, just admiring him from a distance. There was more to him than the body that contained him, I could sense it. Couldn't help but wonder though, why he looked like he did. When you could probably look like anything, why choose a fortyish average Joe?

How many other things like him were wandering around, and how had I missed them?

Like I said before, Castiel? Irritating. Arrogant, insubordinate and moody, and definitely repressed. Repressed in the Billy Joel, 'Only the Good Die Young' sort of way, if what happened in Nevada was any indication.

He was _fantastic_.

"Hiya, Halo," I tucked my free hand in my pocket and strolled towards him, as casually as if I hadn't just seen the fireworks, "Good timing. I got you a cherry pie." In the other hand I held a plastic bag, which I hefted to indicate the contents.

He tilted his head at me. With that he seemed to settle somehow, back into a reasonable amount of space. He also relaxed, which I took as a good sign.

"Gwen Cooper and her family are... safe," Castiel reported, "none of them have been replaced by Leviathan, nor do any Leviathan appear to be in their vicinity at the moment. I don't believe I was detected."

Relieved, I clapped him on the shoulder, using the gesture to propel him towards the pickup. "Good work. Let's get going."

"I also located Rex Matheson. I believe he was the other Torchwood operative you were concerned about."

I swung back to look at him, driver's side door held open. "Where is he?"

"Considering that he appears to share certain properties with you," Castiel's tone was dry, even for someone with a voice like a throat full of gravel, "he's in no danger of dying. The Leviathan seem to have realized this, and have detained him in an Illinois food processing and distribution center that appears to be a central base. To all appearances, he's fine and under observation for the moment."

I could work with that. I wanted Rex to suffer as little as possible, but if we stayed the course, he'd never have been captured at all. He could be furious at me later, _if_ he ever found out.

"You move fast," I said to Castiel, and climbed into the cab. "I'm surprised you didn't show up on someone's radar, as much traveling as you did. How's the batteries?"

"Fine," Castiel replied, drawing his own door shut, "I've grown quite good at... camouflage. With such a small expenditure of energy, it was unlikely that I would be noticed."

"Good," I said, "let's stick to that plan." I guided the pickup back onto the interstate, headed for Denver. Just eight more hours on the road, and we'd be at our destination.

Whatever problems Castiel had with cheeseburgers, he had no problems whatsoever with Hostess cherry pies. In fact, I discovered, he liked them. A lot. ...Sort of an obscene amount, really, unless you're into that sort of thing. I didn't _think_ I was. Then again, I'd never been turned on before by someone sucking the glaze off of a manufactured pastry shell. I pride myself on my driving skills, but that? That almost made me rear-end a semi.

Just eight more hours. Eight hours... without murdering him or tossing him down in the back of the truck. That's the kind of thing they give out _medals_ for.

In the end, I made it through six. But in my defense, _he_ started it.

Two hours outside of Bootback, Castiel had been listening to some late-night relationship talk show. He was driving, and I was glad just to have a break, so I didn't complain. It's those reflectors on the median strips. They're hypnotizing. Normally I really don't like being a passenger, but after almost twelve straight hours on the road, even driving gets monotonous.

"Doctor Sterling's going to tell Melissa that she should try and talk to her boyfriend first," I said, probably taking up more than my fair share of the bench seat, "they've been together over two years. If you haven't guessed from the past three callers, two years is apparently her high water mark."

_"Melissa,"_ the good doctor started in, all warm sympathy, _"I think it's important that you approach Gary with your concerns. After all, you've been seeing one another for over two years."_

"Then she's going to use a traveling metaphor to hint that maybe Melissa should just dump the guy."

Of course, Doctor Sterling didn't disappoint. _"It's possible that maybe your paths have just come to a... you know... bend in the trail."_

"You mean fork, Doc?"

_"If things continue the way it sounds like they've been going, it may be... Melissa, it may just be time to look at where you've been, and where you want to go, and decide if... you know... if this is the man you see yourself with, driving down that long highway. Does that make sense?"_

"She mixed highway metaphors with hiking metaphors. I call foul." I looked back from the window to grin at Castiel. "What do you think, Cas?"

"I will never fully understand humans," Castiel nodded sideways at the radio, "but regarding your concern with Doctor Sterling's response: I'm indifferent."

"And that's why you never will understand humans," I laughed, "taking a side and fighting about it is in our genes. For instance, me? I think this woman should not be on the radio, let alone allowed to give dating advice. There's a strong, absolute opinion for you."

"She seems to highly encourage communication. I believe that has some merit." Castiel reached over to turn off the radio when the broadcast took a commercial break. As old as the pickup was, the radio had separate buttons for power and volume. He'd worked out how to operate most of the buttons in thirty seconds, and had changed the preprogrammed radio stations in under two minutes. _While_ driving.

I was bored. I counted.

"Her and everyone else," I shrugged, "not that anyone actually _follows_ that advice."

Castiel absorbed this with a frown and lapsed into silence again, while I went back to looking at the passing fields. As if to mock us, there was a full moon tonight. Definitely not an eclipse. Absolutely no chance of one, whatsoever. With no more than the occasional floodlit barnyard to break up the dark, though, I could appreciate the silvery landscape.

"Jack," Castiel said suddenly.

"Yeah?"

"Two days ago, you kissed me." And while Castiel had a tendency to say things without question marks, I could hear his 'why?' floating around inside the observation.

"That's right," I said, cautious, "I do that sometimes."

"I'd like to talk about it."

Hoo, boy. Saw that one coming so far away, I could have picked it off with a scope rifle. I thought about trying to sidetrack him, at least temporarily. But an hour and a half is a long time to keep someone sidetracked. Especially when that someone is Castiel, and you're trapped in the cab of a very small pickup with him.

"Yeah, my kisses are usually worth talking about."

"_Jack._"

He did exasperation, order, and threat all in one syllable. A little ripple of power washed over me. Had to admit, I was impressed.

"What is there to talk about?" I spread my hands helplessly, "Unless you have constructive criticism. It was a kiss. It's over. If you're looking for a deeper meaning, you're barking up the wrong tree."

Castiel squinted. "I don't understand."

"You know, I'm beginning to think you say that when you do understand, but you want me to say it anyway."

"Never."

"Whatever," I replied airily, just for the sake of winding him up again, "And don't tell me you haven't tried that on this 'Dean' of yours."

Castiel shook his head while I watched, mouth working soundlessly while he searched for a comeback. "I don't understand how you could clearly be an active participant, yet ascribe no meaning at all to the act."

Well, that was just plain insulting. Not to mention, wrong. It wasn't the first time I'd been confronted by the same accusation, but it never felt any nicer. Random people, I could laugh at. But the thought of Castiel holding such a low opinion of me? "I said 'deeper meaning,' not 'no meaning,'" I shot back, "there's a difference. You're looking for the truth? It was a stressful situation and you were crowding me. I reacted."

"You kissed me because I encroached on your physical space," Castiel translated. He sounded confused, not that I blamed him.

"And you're hot, let's not forget that. Can we be done with this? Look! We're not that far from Abilene. That's just outside of Bootback, right?"

He still looked confused. And maybe upset; I wasn't sure. It was dark and reading his expressions required a field guide and a magnifying glass.

"I like you," I spelled out the obvious, feeling twelve for doing so. I don't think someone's been able to make me feel _twelve_ in _twelve hundred years_. "But I like a lot of people."

"Enough to kiss them when they 'crowd you,'" Castiel said, and I could hear him trying out the phrase.

"At least," I agreed with a shrug.

I wasn't prepared for the sudden deceleration. I admit it. Luckily, I like to obey whatever traffic laws I don't deem an invasion of my privacy, and I had my seatbelt on. Castiel braked so hard that it threw me against the harness. He guided the pickup to the shoulder while I was still gasping for air.

"If I'm to spend eternity in Purgatory," Castiel turned off the engine and looked at me, "then I intend to crowd you once more before I go." And then he was. Crowding me. A lot. Putting out such a powerful field of energy that even my wrist strap beeped in distress.

"Watch that," I nodded toward my wrist, trying to be casual about the fact that Castiel had me pressed up against the window, "if I can see it, so can your old bosses."

The energy field dampened. "They aren't looking," Castiel growled, "without personal motivation, they never truly look." Then he stared at me, hard, and I could feel his breath and the heat of his body as the cab cooled in the October night air.

"You've got a job to do," I warned him, "this is not it."

"_I will __**do my job.**_" The five syllables dropped like a handful of unpinned grenades. Then he tilted his head, and this time it wasn't about being confused at all. My hand was on his cheek before I knew it, and that was apparently a green flag. Or a red flag to a bull - although we all know it's more about moving objects.

Boy, is it _ever_.

I held him to me, like I could hold off the future with just my hands, and he kissed me like it was the last good thing he'd ever get. I knew time might be running out, and while I'd tried to live the last few hours in the present, it was harder now than it had been in the beginning. I tried to draw back a time or two; stay focused. But he's got a way of looking; this innocence and intense determination, like he'd keep me pinned against that window until the next ice age. I gave up fighting with my own self-control. I wanted it too. I'm selfish enough to take an offer like that and not feel sorry about it.

All the while, I could feel the time bleeding away. It hadn't hit me that hard - not much does, anymore - until I thought of all the unspent potential Castiel would leave behind when the door closed on him. I thought of the sleeping Castiel, the frozen survivor in Angelo's basement. Would he disappear? I didn't know, although I believed he would. Time's funny that way.

I'd been going over my alternate plan again and again, looking for flaws, working out fills for the pieces of the puzzle I didn't have. Castiel's current intention was to capture his past self after he had released whatever 'power' he'd taken from Purgatory back into the portal. Together we'd temporarily neutralize the Winchesters - he assured me they would be there as well - and then move the Castiel from 2010 through the portal.

Whatever Purgatory was, it was not a space-time rift. A rift isn't a place. Using incredibly simplistic terms for the sake of my argument, it's a passageway. Sure, it's possible for things to tumble around in there for billions of years. But anything that goes in can come out on the other end, on its own, without any special effort in any time. If the angels were what they claimed to be, even a _fraction_ of what they claimed to be, I figured it was a safe bet that they wouldn't throw something so dangerous as the Leviathan into such an unknown quantity.

Thing was, Castiel? _My_ Castiel? The one in the morgue in his own personal freezer? He did tumble out of a rift. And not just any rift, but the Cardiff Rift. Whatever happened in 2010, Castiel ended up there, _without_ his Leviathan payload. Maybe there was a reason I had specific orders not to interfere, but I trusted myself here and now far more than I trusted a set of instructions from a box on the shelf.

I had one thing going for me at least: Castiel seemed to trust me. Which meant he wouldn't know what I was doing until it was too late to stop me.

Whether he trusted me later would remain to be seen. But at least he'd be _here_. Somewhere.

Speaking of, somewhere in the middle of me reaffirming my determination to ruin Castiel's plans, he'd gotten my shirt open. "Okay," I laughed, torn out of my bad mood by the hungry hands on my skin, "that's more than crowding me, Cas."

He pulled back from me to look up, and I remembered that he was still convinced he was doomed.

Hey, can't deny a dying man's last wish, right?

Then I thought about Gwen on the run, with her husband, her mother, and her baby daughter. I thought about Rex held prisoner and Phil, already dead along with an entire L.A. city block. Did I have the right to take this time for myself? Even if what we were about to do in Kansas would wipe the Leviathan out of the past year, and with that, whatever time we took wouldn't matter?

The hands on my chest were tempting, but to be honest, the minute Gwen touched my thoughts, the debate was over.

So I improvised. I laid my hands over his. "Not right now."

He sat back, and my hands closed around his. It felt odd, but good, to do that. "Whatever happens, Castiel," I said seriously, "I promise you: this is _not_ your last hour. I don't make promises I can't keep."

Silence folded around us while he thought it over, his fingers still and quiet underneath mine.

"You can't be certain," Castiel said. It was a statement, not an invitation to be pitied. I could respect that. He withdrew.

"I make it my business to be certain," I replied, nursing a twinge of something between disappointment and relief as he separated from me, "you know I've got plenty of time to make good. I don't know _how_ you know that, but you do."

"Yes," Castiel said, grim as he leaned forward to turn over the ignition, "you do have the time." We pulled off the shoulder and I sank back against the seat with a long sigh. For a few seconds, I felt tired. Not physically, but... everywhere else. Death feels that way. It only lasts a little while, though. Castiel was right: I did have the time.

"You know," I told him cheerfully, a few miles down the road, "I've got plenty of cryptic people in my life as it is. Would you mind not being one?"

"I'll explain later," Castiel answered, turned his head just a fraction, and smiled deliberately where I could see. In spite of myself, I grinned back.

"Later? As in, 'after this is all over,' later?"

"Yes, Jack. When this is 'all over,' I will explain. Whatever you would like to know."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

"I'm holding you to that one."

"Please do."

* * *

With a name like Bootback, Kansas, you'd expect a dump or a quirky movie set. In reality, Bootback was a suburb of Abilene, interconnected by a sprawl of strip malls and apartment complexes. It looked like any other Midwestern suburb might; at least from the inside, with schools and a couple grocery stores and a Best Buy. Things didn't get weird until you waded into the weeds, which was where we were going.

Tucked into a thick windbreak of old pines was an abandoned train depot. A single stretch of track ran alongside the low brick building, vanishing at both ends in the shadows under the trees. Like the helm of a yacht, a second story structure rested in the middle of the building with large windows under small, round porticos. The whole thing looked very overbuilt, with heavy stone sills and eaves. A mostly overgrown gravel drive led across the tracks and up to a small lot beside the building. As we pulled nearer, the building grew more imposing. Large windows opened above our heads like empty eyes. It was taller than I'd thought. Train stations and I have a complicated relationship, have I mentioned that? Railroads, depots, tunnels: they attract temporal anomalies like syrup attracts hummingbirds. I don't scare easily, but my gut knotted up a little. "Is this place abandoned?" I asked as I came around the pickup to join Castiel. I wrapped my coat a little more snugly around my body. It was Kansas after all - we'd left all the sunny climates behind. October was just as frosty as you'd expect in the Midwest.

"It is owned by Crowley, under one of his many identities," Castiel said, gazing upwards a few steps in front of me, "although it has not been in use for over a year." His words left puffs of white frost in the air. So did mine.

"Crowley?" The last time I'd heard that name had been-

"Not _that_ Crowley," Castiel interrupted, before I could finish my thought. I could hear the distaste in his voice and smiled to myself. Whatever else could be said of him, he was at least consistent with his own mythology.

I pocketed my torch and the Portable Prison Cell, which had been hooked up to the pickup's electrical harness until now. Castiel led the way to a pair of heavy, ornate metal doors closed with a chain and new steel padlock. "What's it doing all the way out here? There's nothing but farm ground for at least a few mile in every direction."

"It was the private station of a rail baron in the mid-eighteen-hundreds," Castiel explained. He cupped the padlock and I watched in surprise as it dropped open. "He had family here and traveled frequently between California and Kansas. When his fortunes dissolved shortly after the railway boom, the building was purchased and converted into a surgical theater."

"A surgical theater. Out here."

"Yes. It remained derelict throughout most of the twentieth century, before it was recently purchased by Crowley and repurposed." He held the door open.

"As what?"

"You don't want to know."

"I can guess." Clicking on my torch, I moved inside.

My boots hit metal, footsteps echoing out into empty space. A quick sweep of the light revealed a railing and a set of stairs, leading down into an open, white-tiled space. The door closed heavily behind me and Castiel moved past me, down the stairs. The light of my torch bounced off the walls, throwing out long, soft-edged shadows.

"We should find sufficient cover," Castiel said at the bottom of the stairs, "then I can-"

"Wait," I cut him off, "you said transporting someone used enough energy to be of notice, right? Maybe Heaven isn't looking, but it's something _you_ might be expecting. Right?"

"It won't matter," Castiel replied. He turned to me and looked up, eyes unreadable in the dark shadows under his brows.

"If your past self notices that another angel on his paygrade shows up," I suggested, amazed at how quickly I seemed to have adapted to Castiel's vocabulary, "that could change how the whole series of events play out."

"It won't _matter_," Castiel repeated, insistent, "Jack, at that point I was weakened and hallucinating in agony. My thoughts were not on my surroundings. They were on redeeming myself to the people I betrayed." His head dropped.

I watched him for a few moments in silence, several replies on the edge of my tongue.

In the end, I closed the distance between us and put an arm around his shoulders. "Okay," I said, lowering my voice, "I still want to scout this place, before we do anything."

"This building is devoid of any activity," Castiel protested. He turned his head and drew back, and I followed his gaze after a moment with the beam of my torch. On the wall was a series of sigils drawn in dark, flaking paint.

Or maybe old blood.

"That's not the point, Cas," I swatted his back and pushed him off, redirecting the light elsewhere as I moved away, "It's just good sense to know all the exits. After all," I grinned back at him, whether he saw it or not, "I was born a coward. Stay here." And off I went.

The layout of the building was a wreck, frankly. Beyond the auditorium we'd walked into was a long ramped hallway ringing the central room. It spiraled up to the second level. There were other rooms off the main corridor; no bigger than closets, some of them. Some were empty, some were lined with shelves of unidentifiable liquids and objects in jars. The patina of age and disuse coated everything I saw. I didn't understand this place. I wanted to. I wanted to spend days here - in the daylight, mind, or with a decent generator to light the place - studying it. The very walls here seemed to hum with potential; with human secrets and emotions. A quick scan of the auditorium agreed. For whatever reason, the building pulsed like a heartbeat. Like a living thing.

I moved out onto the balcony above the central auditorium and turned off my torch, allowing my eyes to adjust to the moonlight coming through the windows behind me. My shadow fell over Castiel, standing near the dark sigils on the wall. He looked up at me.

"Scenic location, but the lighting leaves something to be desired," I called down to him, hoping to lift his mood. I had a pretty poor success rate at that, but I'm an optimistic guy.

"You've found what you were looking for, Jack?" Castiel asked.

"Not hardly. You should _see_ this place," I walked the arc of the balcony.

"I have."

"That friend of yours, Crowley? He left in a hurry. Most of his stuff's still here. If that's his stuff."

I watched as once again, Castiel's head whipped away from the marks on the wall. Seemed awfully interested in that. "Crowley was _not_ my friend." He was emphatic. Irritated. "And yes. He no longer had a use for the location, and he is unconcerned with repercussions should someone break into it. He has… other things to worry about, at this point in time."

"He must, considering he hasn't come barging in here yet." I shrugged. Hitting the end of the balcony, I started back. "Guy with the money to just buy a place like this, then hide it in a mountain of paperwork? He'd be watching this place somehow. I would."

"Crowley is a demon, Jack. I'm certain he's aware someone is here. But he's ultimately a pragmatist. And a coward. Unless we give him reason to interfere, he's likely busy with troubles elsewhere."

"Are the Leviathan his problem, too?"

"They're everyone's problem, Jack."

I paused, hand on the wall, looking down at him. From this far away, I could see the defeated slump of his shoulders. Whatever he was, he'd picked up human body language brilliantly. I didn't want to leave him. First, I'd just given this Crowley fellow an excellent opening for a dramatic entrance - and if he was anything like Castiel, he wouldn't be able to resist. Second, Castiel looked even more beaten than he had when we arrived. I've looked down the barrel at oblivion a few times myself. I understood. It's like ripping off a bandage to me: if I've got to do it, I'd rather do it quick than slow and have to really think about it.

Think what you want, I'm not a masochist. Not about physical pain, anyway.

Wait. Maybe I am.

"You want to come with me, Cas?" Fingertips still brushing the tile, I waved out the windows with the end of my torch. "I'm going to have a look outside. Hey, and where's that... pond, you were telling me about? Wanted to have a look at that too."

"I have no interest in the surrounding grounds," Castiel replied, "the aqueduct is a short walk west of here." He turned his back on me. I reminded myself that he had the ability to get himself out of trouble, shrugged, and started back down the corridor. Before I'd taken three steps, my fingers grazed the edge of a tile that pushed out significantly further than the rest, and I stopped.

Swinging the light up to take a closer look, I searched around the edge of the raised tile with my fingertips. Although it matched the other tiles on the wall at first blush, illumination showed that the grout around it was dirty. It had been touched, and frequently.

"First Angelo, now Crowley?" I muttered and pushed on the tile, "What's the deal?"

One of the door-sized windows nearest me swung open with a click, allowing me access to the first level roof.

Further up and further in, as they say. or in this case: out.

With a quick backward glance at the auditorium floor, I stepped through and into the chilly October night breeze. The auditorium floor wasn't any warmer than it was up here, really, but the walls - and the trees - at least cut down on the wind. Not so up here. Why would a train station or a surgical theater bother to conceal the roof access? Or was it a recent addition? Clearly, this building had more secrets than I had time to suss out.

Straight across from the window I'd come through, at the edge of the building, was a fire escape. The single iron ladder affixed to the brickwork looked sturdy, and I started down. It dropped me off on the western-most edge of the building, facing another wall of thick pine trees. The rail line I'd noticed before eased off into the woods, slicing out a narrow, dark tunnel. It was overgrown and choked with brush, but - not counting the building itself - it was also the most interesting thing on the property. Twenty minutes later, I waded into the weeds.

The rails were lost under a carpet of pine needles, but I could still feel them. Keeping the inside of the left rail against my boot kept me straight on the path. The windbreak was dense and dark, and I shut off my torch once more to make use of what little light there was. Weeds died back around me, unable to survive in the dim, until I reached the center. Here, I could more clearly see the bony fingers of tree trunks and naked skeletal branches. The thick dead carpet of needles reflected the scarce beams of moonlight from overhead. I don't get too worried about that kind of thing, generally.

But generally, I don't have someone following me.

I didn't stop. Turning around, pausing to listen would cost me precious distance. Castiel was as much soldier as I was, I knew that. He would have gotten my attention by now. That only left a couple options, and I didn't like any of them.

I ran.

Running in a dark stand of trees is ill-advised. Although I was no longer tripped up constantly by brush, the ground was still uncertain, and an unexpected tree root against my foot or a branch in my face would have put me down hard. But I saw the glimmer of light less than twenty yards off, the gray glow of an asphalt road, and the flicker of water on the other side. Almost there.

Behind me, I heard the footsteps that had been carefully moving in tandem with mine a minute or two earlier. Now, my pursuer made no secret of his presence. It was clear in a moment that he could run significantly faster than me. I'm an athlete. I do this for a living. I've had to chase down things that would make Olympic track stars think twice, and sometimes tactics and weapons fail and the only option is a test of stamina and will. But he had me. He had me from the minute I started down that railroad line.

A few feet from the edge of the windbreak, he slammed hard into my back, and we tumbled to the ground. I skidded face-first into the pine needles, the wind knocked out of me by the impact with him, and then the ground.

"Hiya, Jack," Rex's voice floated teasingly over my shoulder, "Got ya. Boy, you took a lot longer to track down than I thought you would."

Over the pain was the awful realization that I'd failed. The Leviathan had me. Whatever they needed, they had now. In a last ditch attempt to stop the inevitable, I tossed the Leviathan masquerading as Rex from my back and rolled after him, digging frantically for my gun on the way. He let me. He was _laughing_ at me. I pummeled him. I lost control under the anger and the fear and whaled on him, and he kept on laughing. Warm, dark blood clung to my fists and splattered my face.

"You can't kill me, Jack," Rex chuckled through a split lip that - in a second - was no longer broken, "come on. Nice plan, but you shouldn't have come out here. Curiosity killed the cat."

"Maybe I can't," I growled, "but I bet I can put you down for the count."

"It won't matter," the Leviathan said in my voice, and then I was no longer holding Rex. A copy of my face leered up at me, pale in the fragmented light. "I've got everything we need now. You can't hold me forever." It rolled me over effortlessly, and pinned me down.

"In fact," I watched it tilt its head, eyes glittering, "I think you can't hold me at all."

And then its face split open. I looked into the pit of a huge maw. Leviathan have rows and rows of sharp teeth and forked snake tongues. I don't know where they keep all that in a human form, but they do it somehow. I couldn't see any of that right then, but I could see the massive black hole where my smile, my nose and eyes used to be, and I knew this was ending bloody. Temporarily? But bloody.

"JACK!" A woman's voice rang out over my head. I squeezed my eyes shut and snatched one more breath. Then, the clean, silver _shiiing_ of a blade came down, followed by a profound darkness as a machete separated the Leviathan's head from his neck, and - well - let's not talk about where the downstroke ended.

As deaths go, I've had worse.

* * *

Coming back from death is never pleasant. It hurts, every time. A crackle of pain lances through every part of my body, like I'm just learning to feel again and even the lightest pressure is too intense. My chest hurts, lungs burning as if I've held my breath too long. There's usually a moment of vertigo, and a wave of deep weariness that's only gotten deeper as the years have passed. Then it's back to business as usual. This time, I had a mild headache as well, but considering where the edge of that machete had just been-understandable.

I pushed myself up and hurried to my feet, taking a moment to shake the needles from my coat before approaching the pair of dark shapes on the ground. My apparent rescuer knelt beside a body that looked roughly like mine in the low light. Only... decapitated. The head was missing, which was for the best, I think. Even if it wasn't my best look.

As the other figure moved to its feet, the moonlight revealed a glossy leather jacket in a feminine cut, long legs and a ponytail, and for an instant I thought it might be Gwen. Or, I thought, retreating a step, her doppelganger. It may have just killed another Leviathan, but that meant nothing. Infighting was just as likely as anything else.

"Thanks for the help," I said to the shadows, backing up another step, "but I don't remember calling for backup. Who are you?" The Leviathan with my memories was down. I wasn't about to give another one the same opportunity.

"Sorry about all this. How... how are you, Jack?" said Martha Jones.

She turned towards me, but didn't move forward, and I stopped backing up. We faced one another in the dark - presumably staring. I was, at the very least.

"Fair warning," I said, "if you're a Leviathan, I'm going to kill you on _principle_ now."

"He said you might say that," Martha replied dryly, apology leaving her voice.

There was something in the way she said it. Just the tiniest shift of inflection. The smallest hint of significance. Once you know, once you've met him, you're always changed that way.

At that moment, I knew it was Martha Jones, because I do the same. I don't care how good the Leviathan were, that's something you can't counterfeit. My jaw clenched. "And by 'he,' you mean..."

"Yeah," Martha said, "him."

"So you're traveling with him again?"

"Not likely, Jack." She laughed. "But I happened to be in the area and he, you know, keeps contact. When it's important." Which meant 'not at all, I'm only okay with that sometimes, don't ask me about it.'

An open book, my Martha.

"I know what you mean," I said.

"But really," Martha came forward again, boots rustling in the pine needle litter, "how _are_ you? Look, we've got to deal with..." she scuffed a boot at the body, although careful - I noticed - not to touch it, "then I've got a message. But I know you had something to do with Miracle Day - Torchwood was all over the news. And I haven't seen you since Ianto..." she trailed off. I knew how much she genuinely cared. Martha Jones could bluff with the best, make all the socially acceptable small talk, but I knew her. She knew me; us. But I couldn't talk about it. Not right now.

"Look me up when this is all over and I'll buy you a drink," I said, "You, me, and the angel."

"What?"

I grinned. "Just tell me what you've got for me, Martha Jones. It must be important."

There was a pause.

"You need to stop going back," Martha spoke slowly, like she was pulling the words from memory, "You've tried to fix it the way you want so many times, but you can't. You have to let some things be. The events you're trying to change have gotten so tangled up now that we're all in danger."

"What do you mean, 'so many times?' Does he mean I've done this before?"

"I don't know, Jack."

I let that simmer for a moment. "He didn't happen to elaborate, did he?"

Martha's smile was audible. "What do you think?"

Of course he didn't, and I knew that. I hadn't spent a few centuries ready to kill him because he was an upfront, transparent sort of man.

"I will _fix_ this," I said stubbornly, "he can't stop me. Not unless he comes down here and does it personally. I've lost too many people."

"He said you'd say that, too."

"...Word for word?"

"Close enough. So, he said if you insisted on doing something 'incredibly stupid, as usual,' he'd help you out. Just this once, for the sake of the universe. Here. Catch." Something in a small paper sack arced towards me through the dark. I caught it, an inch from my face.

"What is it?"

"I didn't look inside. He called it a 'Gallifreyan party favor.' One-time use only. Said he doesn't trust you with anything else. He knows us better than we think he does, doesn't he, Jack?"

"Only sometimes. Why did he send you?" I asked, before I could catch myself, "Why's he got me doing this? He's the _Doctor_, he can snap his fingers and make all of this go away."

"You know why," Martha's voice was sympathetic, "there's rules."

Sometimes, in my bitter moments, I thought the rules that stopped the Time Lords from directly intervening were just a means of keeping their consciences clean. But then I knew better. I glanced at the headless body. "Is that how we stop them? Take the heads off?"

With a hiss, Martha hefted a large metal box. "Only stops them temporarily, unless you keep the head away from the body. Would soak it in Borax, if I'd got any. Lead-lined box'll have to do for now."

"UNIT must have an extended learning program."

"I'm taking this with me. You've got bigger problems to worry about." She turned.

"Wait," I called after her. I'd spent a week with a stranger, swimming currents I'd never even waded in before, and I was hungry for a familiar face. What was it about this life that kept everyone I knew just... skirting around one another? Maybe it was in our natures. Martha looked back.

"Love to stay, Jack. But-" She paused, then gestured for me to follow with her machete. "All right. Walk me to my car if you like. It's by the aqueduct."

"Aqueduct?" Oh. I glanced past her, out once more towards the road and the water beyond.

It was a lot further away than I'd expected it to be, and for a moment I wondered if I'd be able to accomplish everything I'd intended. Then I glanced down at the sack still in my hand. A Gallifreyan party favor?

"What _about_ the aqueduct, Jack?" Martha asked.

"I'll explain later!" I called, and turned back the way I'd come, "Like you said, bigger problems!"

And I did. I had much, much bigger problems.

It hadn't occurred to me to wonder about the fact that Castiel hadn't showed up, until I was out of the trees and saw every light blazing inside the building. The parking lot by the building was empty except for our stolen pickup. I broke into a flat run, sprinting for the ladder that would lead me back to the auditorium balcony. When I reached the open window, I had a clear view through the grillwork. A short, stocky man in a dark suit had Castiel by the throat, backed against the wall. His voice carried up to the balcony, rough and accented.

"-flutter your lily-white ass to the Winchesters' front door, hm? That's right, you _can't_. Because those _abominations_ you turned loose just _burned it to the ground!_"

Castiel started to say something, but never finished. Hot white light poured out of his mouth.

I'm a shoot first, ask questions later kind of guy. Exploding out onto the balcony, I braced myself and leveled my Webley at the stranger.

"HEY! DEAD MAN!" I yelled. He turned, and the light trying to choke its way out of Castiel went out. I had a split second to aim at the guy's bulbous forehead for a clean shot, and pulled the trigger. "Don't mess with the angel!"

He reeled backward. I had a split second to think maybe I'd finally taken something down with genuine bullets. Then he straightened, pupils of his eyes coming back to center. The hole in his forehead sealed. "Oh come _on_," I groaned.

"New boyfriend, Cas?" the stranger taunted, and made a one-handed gesture in my direction. I felt a freight train's worth of inertia slam into my back, crushing me against the balcony railing with enough force to bruise a few organs. I hit my knees as the wave of pain and nausea rolled up and over me, and then I was back up, moving as fast as I could limp from the balcony to the corridor.

Before I made it to the main floor, Castiel blocked the path. I skidded to a stop, he grabbed my arm, and then the world whited out.

"Warning," I groaned, sagging back against the wall of the corridor when things righted themselves, "_warning_, Cas! Where are- we're still here."

Heat and humidity hit me. In seconds I was sweating under my coat. My kidneys and spleen, at least, seemed to have resumed normal location and function.

"It's late August of 2010, Jack," Castiel explained, looking down, "I'm sorry. I had no other options. I am not prepared for a battle with Crowley. He can't follow us here."

"That was Crowley?"

"Yes."

"...Expected him to be taller, somehow." As my bearings returned, I checked my pockets for the Portable Prison Cell and the sack Martha had given me. I felt both, exhaled slowly with relief, and lowered my voice. "This is the day, isn't it."

"Yes. We have a few minutes before the Winchesters arrive."

"Then let's get set up. You head to the balcony, I'll be there in a minute." When Castiel nodded and turned away, I jogged down the ramp to the floor of the auditorium.

The wall where the sigils would be was currently blank. Bits of red-brown stained the grout in between the tiles from the previous attempt. Bang-up cleaning job. Honestly, though? It matched the rest of the place. I didn't really need Castiel's non-explanation to know what Crowley had been using the depot for. What the trays of filthy dissection instruments didn't say, the old blood spattering the floor and lower walls just plain screamed. I recognized a few of the tools sitting out as torture implements, too. Didn't raise my opinion of the guy, though it did make me wonder how deeply Castiel was involved.

Sort of explained his reaction to my suggesting they were friends, at least.

"Cas," I called up to the balcony, pointing to the empty wall, "this is the spot where they open the portal, right?"

"Yes, Jack," Castiel's rough voice echoed down.

"Lucky guess," I muttered with a touch of gallows humor.

Ignoring my surroundings for the moment, I opened up the paper bag Martha had given me. A brick of prismatic crystal about the size of a candy bar spilled out into my hand. Evenly placed depressions, seven in all, dotted the surface like a domino made of glass. On one end was a conventional interface plate, and as I turned it, I could see filaments stretching through the crystal from the plate. Like most Gallifreyan technology I'd encountered, it was soft-edged, organic, and beautiful. I'd seen much larger versions of it in the past. They were permanent installations - not like this, which wouldn't be able to cope with the sheer volume of power running through it for more than half an hour. "Party favor," I grinned as I walked to the wall where the sigils had been - or rather, would be, "All right, Doctor. If you're watching this? Put me on the guest list for your next New Year's Eve party. Especially if you prank each other with _time dilation fields_."

For the uninformed, the building blocks of time dilation can be found in the flotsam of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. Einstein's theory, however, described it only as the _perception_ of time passing more slowly. Two observers in motion, each holding a clock, will observe that the other's clock is ticking more slowly than the one in their hands.

Gallifrey and other worlds - trust me, I've seen them - have had those building blocks for a lot longer than Einstein. Remember, Earth is a pretty young world in comparison to the rest of the universe. Or rather, Earth isn't all that young, but the species building movie theatres and Large Hadron Colliders on its surface is.

Right now, anyway. But trust me, they'll catch up. Oh, they'll catch up fast.

Time dilation can be more than just perception. Just as it's possible to hop through time, time can be slowed down and accelerated by the use of technology. It's better for all of us if I don't go into the maths (because neither you nor I have had enough hooch for that), just know that the device exists. Not only will it look like that clock's ticking slower, but when a time dilation field is deactivated, it will actually read a time behind or ahead of an identical clock outside the affected space.

But we're not messing with clocks here. Clocks can't steal your identity and tear big, messy chunks out of your ass.

Not if you use them properly, anyway.

I tucked the block against the wall directly beneath the spot where the sigils would be painted. For good measure, I shimmed it in place with a broken shard of tile, and pushed a rolling instrument cart over the spot. While I synced the device and the universal control interface on my wrist, I heard - and felt - the reverb of a heavy door slamming overhead.

Someone was in the building. Castiel hadn't given me specifics on the time (would've been handy), but I guessed it was the Winchesters and this morning's guest of honor.

"Come on," I growled under my breath at the light blinking red on my wrist, keeping one eye on the hallway, "come _on_." If I left before the device synced properly, I'd be up on the balcony doing it. At that distance, with so much energy disturbance in the building, I'd be lucky if my wrist strap could find it, let alone lock onto its frequency.

Slow, heavy footsteps echoed into the auditorium. Something kept their pace at a crawl, giving me precious seconds. The light I was watching flipped from red to a soft blue. On the floor, the device glowed briefly blue as well, then winked out.

"Synchronization complete," the dash on my wrist strap reported. Pausing just long enough to pump my fist in the air, I bolted for the balcony. I barely made it a few steps up the ramp before the commotion started behind me. The metal door leading into the auditorium swung open with a crash and boots clanked on the iron stairwell. The noise they made covered my own as I sprinted up the hall to join Castiel.

"What was that?" Castiel asked.

"The Winchesters. I know, rowdy bunch, right?"

"No," he clarified, "the object you placed against the wall."

"Insurance," I said. Castiel narrowed his eyes at me, but didn't press.

We stayed just at the edge of the corridor to avoid attracting attention. Or rather, I did. Castiel was next to me one moment, invisible the next. At first I thought he'd left, until I felt a hand on my shoulder. When I glanced at the spot, I saw the depression of palm and fingers in the wool.

Well, all right then. So he could disappear. Neat.

Leaning against the wall, clammy in the humidity, I watched the scene unfolding below one-eyed. I kept a finger over the button that would activate the time dilation device propped against the wall. Nothing to do after that but wait, and not intervene.

I guess you could say my first reaction to the 'Winchesters' Castiel talked about was purely physical. They probably get that a lot. The first two were in their early thirties, maybe older; hard to tell. These were probably the 'brothers' Castiel referred to earlier, although they looked nothing alike. The big one (and I mean _big_) had a soft, serious teenage face, ridiculous sideburns, and the fluid physical control of an assassin. The shorter one was more my type - or would've been if he bothered to shave. Big eyes, broad shoulders and military posture, but he moved like a man in constant pain. Knees didn't bend; back didn't flex. Old scars, I thought. Sad on a guy that young.

The third member of the team was a man in his fifties, maybe even sixties. His stiff walk reminded me of the short guy's. Those two were definitely in the same line of work. He had a light layer of fat, but did his share of lifting and pushing heavy furniture. Maybe with a little less puffing, even.

They all struck me as experienced survivalists. I could see their minds tucking away the high ground and potential weapons in the room. We probably wouldn't even get to throwing punches in a real fight. I'd have a knife in my liver or a bullet in my brain long before that. The three of them functioned like a tight-knit team, anticipating one another and communicating with glances and gestures. The whole scene resonated with the golden days of Torchwood Three. I reminded myself that _my_ team wouldn't be caught dead wearing so much plaid, and felt a little better.

The big guy was the one chink in their armor. Though he outweighed everyone else and controlled himself like a natural born killer, he was distracted. The other two - judging from the looks they kept throwing his way - knew it and worried about him. If there was one weak link here, it was him.

In the center of the activity was Castiel. I've seen corpses in better shape. Deep lines of red ringed his eyes. Blisters marred his face and hands. He was bleeding, although I couldn't find the source from so far away. The Winchesters bundled him down against a cabinet when he couldn't stand on his own steam. He glanced up at us, once. Remembering what Castiel told me earlier, however, when he looked away I was sure he'd dismissed us as hallucinations. Up on the balcony, Castiel squeezed my shoulder a little harder, and I understood. I'd had to watch myself die a few times, too.

"Dean," Castiel on the floor said to the short guy with the big eyes. Now I had a face to put with the name. The exchange was quiet, but given the acoustics of the room and the surrounding silence, it wasn't too hard to hear.

"I feel regret," Castiel said, huddled against the cabinet, "about you, and what I did to Sam."

The fingers on my shoulder dug in a little more, just to the side of pain. I let it stand. Bruises heal.

Dean was angry. "Yeah, well," he turned his back on Castiel, sliding the table I'd moved away from the wall, "you should."

I held my breath as the one-sided conversation continued. Nobody noticed the device tucked on its side against the wall. It could have been a stray surgical instrument, or litter from the building crumbling around it. Nobody came near enough to disturb the tile holding it in place. I breathed out.

"If there was time, if I was strong enough, I'd fix him now," I heard Castiel say to Dean, "I just wanted to make amends before I die."

"Okay," Dean said. Might have sounded like a dismissal to the inexperienced, but I knew an emergency exit when I heard one. He wanted to lay into the angel for something, for whatever Castiel did to this 'Sam,' but there wasn't time.

"Is it working?" Castiel persisted. The innocent sincerity in the question startled me.

"Oh, Cas," I whispered.

Movement near the edge of the auditorium drew my attention to the old man in the ball cap and I realized that the big guy was missing. I heard a voice in the hallway leading up to the balcony and tensed. If that was-

"Sam," I heard Castiel murmur, so close to my ear that I could feel his breath. If his hand hadn't been cutting off circulation to my left arm, I might have jumped. I'd almost forgotten he was there as his scene played out on the auditorium floor.

"What?"

Castiel released my shoulder. Shaking some feeling back into my arm, I flattened myself against the wall and peered down the corridor, straining for Sam's voice. Whether or not it was actually 'Sam,' I tagged him anyway. Easier than trying to find another size-based nickname. I mean, there's plenty, but after a while it just gets old.

He was talking to himself. Reassuring himself. Arguing, softly, with someone who never answered - at least not where I could hear. It was a short conversation, but it told me plenty when lined up against his earlier behavior.

"Did you do something to that kid?" I muttered, when I felt Castiel return.

He answered in Old Aldurian. Or he may as well have, considering how little I actually understood.

"I broke the wall inside his mind that protected him from his memories of harrow Hell, and Lucifer's cage," Castiel said.

"Five words or less."

Castiel paused. I could almost hear him counting words. "He has lost his mind," he replied.

"And you did that."

"No-" Castiel argued angrily, then: "-yes."

"Can you fix it?"

"Yes. And I _will_, Jack. I-"

Sonorous Latin echoed up from the auditorium floor, interrupting whatever else Castiel was about to say. Energy crackled around us, shifting and centralizing like dogs called to a master.

I couldn't tear my eyes away from him. This whole plan needed to go flawlessly. It was starting right now, and I'd just realized that maybe I miscalculated.

Maybe _he_ was the monster.

Setting loose the Leviathan by accident to save the world, sure, I could understand. But the idea of Castiel stirring around in Sam's brain- I remembered his threat, suddenly, back in the Torchwood museum in Angelo's basement. _Tell me or I will take it from your mind._

He could. He really could. And I'd just seen the results.

Everyone's got their moments of doubt. I didn't have time to gauge all the outcomes, but fresh from Miracle Day, I had time to wonder: what if I was setting off another catastrophe? Behind us, the Latin continued. I lowered my hands, and the paper bag leftover from the time dilation device crackled in my pocket.

The device.

The _Doctor_!

My heart lurched back into place. He'd sent Martha for a reason. I didn't know what reason that was, but I did know what it wasn't. He wouldn't help me save Castiel at the cost of the world. Not this world, anyway. He'd burned up whole suns for personal reasons before, but this little rock had priority.

Maybe I couldn't quite believe in Castiel yet, but I _did_ believe in the Doctor. Always would.

I tossed Castiel my best grin and peered around the corner of the wall. While we'd been distracted, someone had painted the sigils. They glittered, wet and red in their circle; blood now for certain. As I watched, the pattern burned like molten gold, cracked open and sucked into itself. Around me, energy patterns shifted and intensified until I could feel physical pressure, like the Rift ready to open. Beyond the hole in the tile was nothing but blackness.

One chewed up, bloodied man in a trench coat stood between it and the Winchesters.

The old man had flawless pronunciation, I'll give him that. Wouldn't have expected it from someone who looked more trucker than theosophist. Serves me right, really; I know better. When he stopped chanting, for one breath everything hung suspended; silent. Waiting.

Down on the auditorium floor, Castiel's body lit up like a star.

Light poured out of him and into the open hole. I've seen beautiful things in my life, and terrible things, and things that were both. Castiel fell into the latter category, while the bloody scraps of him glowed and poured off more heat than the summer dawn outside the windows.

"Now," Castiel urged in my ear, "now, Jack! Throw the Prison Cell!"

I waited.

"_Jack_!"

Waited…

The portal to Purgatory was almost too quick to catch, but I did it. I activated the time dilation field around the section of wall, and everything in that tiny area slowed to a crawl.

Castiel collapsed, and the Winchesters hurried to him, too busy with his apparent death - and subsequent resurrection - to notice that the portal stayed open.

Then the Leviathan rose up. Inside Castiel's body. Countless numbers of them. Legion. All wrapped in that blood-spattered trench coat.

It got a little messy.

"Jack," Castiel hissed as the one-sided battle raged below, "what have you _done_?"

And then, behind us in the corridor, I heard Sam. "Cas?"

Down below, the Leviathan animated Castiel's body towards the exit at a heavy lumber.

At the entrance to the balcony, _my_ Castiel turned back from where Sam faced him. I couldn't tell who was more horrified.

"Dean!" Sam raised the alarm, "Bobby!"

"_Run_!" Castiel ordered me.

Not caring who saw, I sprinted across the balcony. A flash of white light behind me tossed my shadow on the far wall, stark black on the tiles. My hand slammed down on the latch I'd found before, and I tumbled through the emergency exit hatch onto the roof.

* * *

The derelict tracks were easier to navigate in the pre-dawn than they would be in a year in the middle of the night. A thin haze of fog drifted between the trees. The landscape hadn't changed. The body of the Leviathan who'd attacked Phil and Rex was conspicuously absent, though, which made for one less thing to trip over. I wondered how Martha was getting on in 2011 with her head-in-a-box.

Considering the shape the Leviathan had when she chopped its head off, I guess you could actually call it a 'Jack-in-the-box.'

What? Too soon?

It hadn't occurred to me until then that the Leviathan might have stolen my unusual recuperative abilities, too. I sure hoped it wasn't busy growing another head.

I ran with everything I had in me, determined to get to the aqueduct before the Leviathan controlling Castiel's body did. It navigated at a shamble down the drive, evidently headed for the main road. Either they didn't notice the path cut by the old rail line, or they weren't too concerned about saving time. Maybe they just didn't want to pick up burrs. I think I still had a few leftover from Nevada.

Nevada already seemed like a lifetime ago.

Whoever designed the aqueduct access point should be shot. A footbridge - _a footbridge_ - connected it to the main road, over a shallow runoff. The aqueduct itself was surrounded by a chain link fence. The entrance was locked with a heavy chain and a padlock, resistant to even my most determined attempts to break it. Wasn't sure what Castiel - _my_ Castiel - was up to by then, but I sure could have used his help, and wasn't ashamed of my own wishful thinking.

As no angel seemed to be forthcoming, I drew my gun, backed up a step to fire... and stopped. The report from the shot could alert the things manipulating Castiel's corpse to the fact that someone was out here. It might stop them. They might go somewhere else. I didn't know how important this water supply was to them. I just knew - from what Castiel told me in the truck on the way to Kansas - they ended up here.

Swearing under my breath, I holstered the Webley and threw myself at the fence, going up and over with a relative minimum of scrambling. Most people would have taken off a long coat for a climb like that, knowing the tails would inevitably snag on the rough top edge of the fence. But that was an amateur move. I'd had a lot of years with this coat. Enough to get my shoulders dislocated a few times until I learned how to dismount properly.

It's all about the smooth exit. Trust me.

I dragged the Portable Prison Cell from the pocket of my coat, then bundled it and chucked it into the brush. It already needed a professional cleaning, and not only did I not want to swim in wet wool, I didn't want to deal with the inevitable shrinkage, later. Nobody, and I mean _nobody_, likes shrinkage.

With a firm grip on the slim silver case of the device, I waded in. The shore jutted out past the access point, giving some camouflage behind the curve of the bank. I crouched in the water, pressed against the steepest point of the shoreline, and waited for my cue.

I didn't have to wait too long. Castiel's coat sliced out a pale silhouette under the trees in a few more minutes. The Leviathan inside his body nudged Castiel unsteadily up the last of the path. With a touch, he broke the lock I'd been so careful to avoid. He went into the water and I went after him. The water here was cleaner than I'd expected, but still muggy with silt. I lost my bearings almost instantly, gamely kicking forward anyway because, well, that's what you do.

A hand closed around my wrist, jerking me sideways.

Desperation and anger swept over me and I fought it off, but it only gripped me tighter. Then a face loomed close out of the murk, and I was looking into Castiel's wide eyes. His gaze was sane, bright with intelligence. I knew which one had me. _Mine. My_ Castiel. I'm not sure exactly when I started thinking about him in possessives.

He led me through the murk. Blind beyond a few feet, I let him. Then I felt a disturbance in the water, and a bloody trench coat sleeve swept a few inches from my nose. Castiel let go of me, and I saw his hands close on the scruff of the thing's neck. Blue lightning shivered away through the silt, like the underbelly of a storm and the reality of what we'd just done struck me. I'd just let Castiel cross his own timeline. On top of every other violation to the rules I'd already made, he'd just put his hands on his past self. There's a reason why you don't ever do that if you can help it, and I heard him make a noise of distress loud enough to echo through the water. He kept his grip and twisted to look at me, expression a rictus of pain illuminated by flickers of escaping energy.

The Blinovitch Limitation Effect. Somehow, he was controlling the energy surge, but every second clearly cost him, and I needed to _move_.

I dove down and activated the Portable Prison Cell underneath the struggling body. Like an inflating balloon, it bloomed open into a field of lightly glowing blue rings, illuminating the water around us as it encapsulated the rapidly disintegrating form. Castiel yanked his hands away just in time. It snapped shut.

Something was happening inside the cell. The body inside was there, and then gone in less time than it took to blink. To the uneducated, it might have looked like combustion. But the Rift energy monitor on my wrist strap bleeped, the sound made muffled and strange by the water. I didn't need to see the spike warning on the dash to know what had happened. Like so many creatures Torchwood dealt with in the past, the Leviathan had no true physical form. If Castiel's body had been destroyed, they would have gone with it. In order to leave him, the Leviathan needed to make a portal between their current existence and the physical world.

I'd never seen creatures make a temporal fissure to do it, but hey, firsts are fascinating things. Bottom line was: we'd done it. We'd contained the Leviathan. Castiel had been tossed into the Rift, where he'd be picked up by my team.

The cell was a piece of intuitive technology. It was programmed only to hold living things through complex algorithms that nearly shut down the Torchwood software when Tosh first interfaced it with our computers. It held our captives, but let the aqueduct churn in and out with the current. The process of opening up a fissure caused a powerful whirlpool. Castiel struggled towards me while I did my best to hold onto the imprisoned Leviathan. My lungs had finally started to take notice of the exertion and the lack of oxygen. They were burning. It took every fiber of will I had to stay put, because I knew I'd start drowning in less than a minute if I didn't get to the surface.

Apparently realizing their predicament, the Leviathan began to fight the cell. It held, but I guessed the battery wouldn't hold them for an hour at this rate, much less two. Castiel's hands closed around mine, and then he pointed up to the surface. As the swirling currents began to die, I kicked back from the spot and hurried in the direction I assumed was 'up.' The downward swirl of the current made every stroke a struggle. Each motion sucked away more oxygen, and my vision began to spot.

Then the gravel in the shallows swelled up under my hands, dragging at my palms. I pushed my head above the surface for a deep gasp of life-giving air. I'd come up around the bend in the bank, thankfully, and the Winchesters hadn't noticed my noise. To my relief, Sam was with them, in apparently good shape. As I paddled to the curve in the shore, I saw Dean bend down and fish something out of the water. It seemed to expand as he lifted it, the weight of water stretching it out into its original shape.

Castiel's trench coat. He must have lost it in the struggle.

The Winchesters didn't linger. When they were gone, I dove down again, following the soft blue glow to my target. I gestured towards the surface and Castiel nodded, evidently unconcerned about things like breathing. Together, we hauled the Portable Prison Cell and its occupants out of the water to the shoreline. No longer supported by its own buoyancy, the slurry of Leviathan goo was _heavy_.

"You lost your coat again," I panted, shoving wet hair off my forehead. Not that I mind the wet look, but there's a difference between looking attractively damp and, well, _drowned_.

"I did," Castiel agreed, looking down at his arms, "it got in the way."

"They do that." I flopped down on the bank, sucking in blissful lungfuls of air. "Go get the truck. You can move faster than I can. That cell isn't made to hold… however many things are in there."

Castiel vanished. I realized we'd left the truck in 2011, and groaned.

A few minutes later, Castiel reappeared.

"Sorry," I said, "I forgot we time-warped."

Castiel tipped his head. He was also dry, I noticed, and that was just not fair. "But I brought a truck, Jack."

"You did?"

"From a nearby residence."

My mouth fell open. "You know how to steal a truck?" I paused. "Of course you do. What _don't_ you know how to do?"

Castiel looked indignant. "I didn't steal it," he protested, turning towards our captives, "I pressed it into temporary service. I will return it."

"Right," I muttered, dusting off my hands as I jogged to the bushes where I'd tossed my coat, "for 'the greater good.' Come on, let's get this thing loaded."

He left the truck running by the side of the road, which was a good thing, since he'd apparently started it without keys. By the time we got the tailgate up, the rings encasing the Leviathan were already starting to flicker. It made strange looking cargo, one tiny little shell and all that disgusting black goo floating over it like a hot air balloon. "Cas?" I said, "let me drive. You just make sure that thing doesn't tip over."

Castiel nodded, and climbed into the back of the truck.

"And hang on!" I called back as I swung up into the cab.

"What, Jack?" I heard Castiel ask, muffled through the rear glass. The pickup was brand new. Beautiful, bright red, and pristine. I hoped the owners would forgive me.

"HANG ON!" I repeated, and sent the truck careening off down the rail line. Shortest distance between two points, right? Right.

It was a hell of a lot more fun than the road, to boot.

The time dilation field was still holding when we arrived. A pair of heavy steel doors opened into the auditorium floor from right beside the rail line. Maybe the original owner used them to move cargo to and from freight cars. Maybe the second owner used them to load bodies onto flatbeds. I backed right up to them, parked, and - with a helpful angel to jimmy another lock - flung them open.

"I'm going to miss that thing," I panted, as we lugged the cell and its payload into the auditorium towards the waiting portal. He might have been able to carry the whole thing himself, but its balance was precarious and needed a second set of hands. The enclosing field around the cell was actually tangible now, and sturdy (although it tingled to touch), but trying to get a grip on it was like trying to get a grip on a plastic bag full of water. The sludge bulged and bobbled, and have I mentioned it was heavy?

"For your sake, I hope this is a poor attempt at humor," Castiel said through gritted teeth. We centered it as close to the edge of the field as we could safely get without being affected, and I stepped back.

"I meant the _tech_," I clarified, "Ready? When I say go, you shove it in, hard as you can."

The Portable Prison Cell flickered again. A few spots of black spattered onto Castiel's pullover. Somehow, though most of the time I'd known him he hadn't worn it, without his trench coat he looked naked.

"I find it hard to believe this was your plan, all along," Castiel glared at me, "this plan is horrible."

"I know," I grinned, "GO." I deactivated the field as I spoke, and Castiel jammed the Portable Prison Cell and its payload into the shrinking abyss. For a terrifying heartbeat or two, I thought it wasn't going to fit. Then, the last of it wormed through. The wall snapped shut behind it like a drawstring bag.

Everything went silent.

Red sigils dried slowly on the otherwise flawless wall. Underneath them, the time dilation device fizzled and pulsed. I edged over to the spot and squatted, watching the blue glow flicker in and out. "It'll shatter soon," I murmured, "or melt. That's what usually happens when crystals like these overheat. Either way, it's done."

"Jack."

I stood up. "We should get going. And you should put that pickup back where you found it."

For a creature as unspeakably long-lived as Castiel, he had very little patience in some areas. "_Jack,_" he repeated, stern this time.

The power in his voice crawled across my skin, light and spidery. I turned, grinning, and held up a warning finger. "See, this ordering me around? It stops right now, Halo."

"You lied to me," Castiel said, "and you neglected to share your alternate plan."

"You're not bunking in Purgatory tonight," I shrugged, lowering my hand, "are you going to tell me you have a problem with that?"

"I don't understand why you kept it from me."

"You seemed pretty bent on taking the bullet yourself at the time. You might have tried to stop me, and I wasn't in the mood to fight about it."

"I would have appreciated disclosure, about that and the Torchwood morgue. That was my coat, and my vessel, Jack. I want to know why it was there."

"Oh ho, you want to talk about disclosure? I've got a _list_ for you. How's _Sam_, by the way?"

I glared; he glared, then winced and clapped a hand to his temple. My wrist strap squalled a distress signal, as waves of energy rode over us like the wake of an aircraft carrier.

"Time is rearranging itself around us," Castiel said urgently, looking up at me with worry, "we only have a few more moments. Then I must return you to your own time, and return to mine as well."

It was true. Small things, imperceptible changes - that was the Time Agency specialty. Removing the Leviathan from the entire world timeline? The kickback would be extraordinary. Miracle Day hadn't even happened yet. Would it still?

"And Sam is _alive_," Castiel finished, tight and definitely defensive, "he has no memory of finding us."

I breathed out, slow, and panned the room to avoid his eyes. "Couple minutes left, huh?" That wasn't much time for an explanation. Wasn't time for a half dozen important things. But Castiel was still alive. Still free. Why not celebrate, I thought. Mission accomplished.

"Yes, Jack," Castiel said, still watching me. I could tell by the sudden shrewd narrowing of his eyes that he was thinking the same thing I was, and if I'd let him get away with it.

"You want to spend them arguing?" I asked.

Castiel had two handfuls of my shirt before I could do more than tack on a grin. He tossed me into the wall of bloody symbols and came after me. If you've never been kissed by a raging angel, you don't know what you're missing. An experience like that should have its own _name_.

When he pulled back, we were both breathing hard. It was hard for him, I could feel it. To be honest, I didn't want to let go myself. Pure hedonistic selfishness. I wanted to talk him into dinner first. Anything to drag it out. I'd felt better trapped in a pickup truck with Castiel than I'd felt since Miracle Day. _Alive_. Improvising. Not just going through the same, familiar motions. I opened my mouth to find some way to give him the option to stay. What did he have waiting for him in 2012? For that matter, what did I have waiting for me, in 2011?

"Goodbye, Jack," Castiel's voice brushed my mouth, all soft air and vibrations I could feel in my chest.

He reached up. I watched, fascinated, as the fingers of his right hand curled into a benediction. My eyes slid to his, and he paused.

"Look me up sometime," I said, and if I chinned up just a little it was to remind him to buck up too, "and take care of yourself, Halo."

"You as well."

The world whited out.


	3. Part Three

Stars filled my vision, one horizon to the other. I took a deep breath and sat up, and the distant rosy glow of city lights swam into view.

Where was I?

"How'd it go, Jack?" A familiar voice murmured in my ear; one I hadn't heard in a long time. Until I knew what year it was, I wasn't about to speculate _how_ long.

My jaw clenched. Has a tendency to do that, considering the company. "Wish I could say I was happy to see you, John." Captain John Hart sat on the ground beside me, arms wound around his knees. He hadn't changed much. Still wore the elf boots.

"I like it when you say my name like that," John's laugh was quiet, "No pretense at all."

"Where am I? And what am I doing here?"

"You mean you haven't noticed yet? It's Napa Valley!" The expansive sweep of his arm took in the dark hills around us. "The heart of American wine country in the Twenty-First Century! Very scenic. The vintages will be better in a few years, though. Climate change, and all that."

As I turned away towards the scenery, I recognized it. It was Napa Valley. In fact, a dozen yards away, a pair of letireans from Rexel IV was calmly stripping grapes from the vines with thick, bisected lips. The same pair of letireans I'd been watching when Rex called.

"Still waking up with farm animals, eh, Jack?" John chuckled.

"Still trying to drag the _Brigadier Gerard_ look out of the Eighteenth Century?" I could see the thick bars of white braid on his jacket even in the low light.

"There is nothing wrong with building an outfit based on the Napoleonic Wars."

"You always did think _small_."

"Yes, well," John retorted, eyes dropping to my lap, "I had to lower my expectations somewhat, didn't I?"

I couldn't help myself. I laughed. The exchange eased the tension in the air, somewhat, "What year is this?"

"It's 2011," John replied calmly, "but you haven't answered my question. How'd it go?"

How did _what_ go? Saving the world? The road trip from hell, the scrapbook-style theology lessons? Finding out someone's made it their life's work to stalk me, complete with statuary? Having my _life force_ molested by a soldier of God?

I checked my watch, then realized it would be no help. I'd reset it during my road trip with the angel, and we passed through a few time zones since then. If by 'time zones' you mean 'years.' I wouldn't have been surprised if the date panel said 'TILT.'

"It had its moments," I said, not elaborating, "What do you want, John? I'm not even going to ask how you found me."

"Maybe you should," John sounded patently hurt, "considering how you told me to meet you here," he peeled back the cover on his wrist strap, "I've been watching this spot for the past week. At some point, couldn't you have asked the angel to be more specific on a time?"

Alarm bells went off. 'Angel' was not a casual word. Not in my universe. "Why are you _here_, John."

"Debriefing. Unfortunately, not the fun kind. Have a look." He passed over a worn, dog-eared blue notebook. Snapping on my torch with a disbelieving look at John, I flipped open the cover and leafed through a few pages.

"This is my handwriting," I said. And it was. Most of it. There were a few side notes in a second hand. I assumed they were John's, although I hadn't seen his penmanship in years. He wasn't the kind to leave handwritten notes any more than I was.

"Of course it is," John confirmed, "next year, you'll show up on my doorstep, looking like you've been run over. You'll tell me how everyone you love is dead. What do I know? I'll have been too busy making a killing off the space junk coming through the Gulf Rift. Or... rather, you won't show up now, will you? Now that everything's been put right."

"You're from-"

"2010, naturally," I heard John shrug, "so that all of your fussing _probably_ wouldn't erase my memory."

"That's not possible," I said slowly. My wrist strap was good for a lot of things, but time travel was no longer one of them, and hadn't been for some time. The vortex manipulator - the part that allowed me to make relatively short jumps forward and back through time as a 51st-century Time Agent - had long ago been destroyed. And repaired. And then disabled. And repaired again and then- you get the picture. The Doctor likes to keep me on a short leash, at least where time travel's concerned.

Long story short, I couldn't have possibly gone back in time to contact John. Not even if I would have, which, believe me, I wouldn't.

Would I?

"Can't travel because your vortex manipulator is fried?" John smiled, "It still is. You make off with my wrist strap in 2012. Hence all the future tense."

I stared at John. He tapped the open notebook on my lap.

"Oh, there's nothing about your little hardware malfunction in there," John shrugged, "But if you had a working vortex manipulator, you wouldn't have come to see me, would you? Even if the world is burning down faster than a cheap birthday candle. You've been avoiding me like a bitter ex-boyfriend." He turned toward me, light hair catching the reflection of my torch from the pages, "For the record, you didn't have to seduce me. Money would have worked just as well, although I'm sure I enjoyed it. Will enjoy it. Whatever. I can't imagine my opinion of you changes _that_ much in two years. A bastard, but a handsome bastard. I never could say no to a little empty-eyed grief sex."

I rolled my eyes, not dignifying the remark with a reply. After a few seconds of silence, John sighed and went on.

"I expect you wouldn't have come to me at all, if your grand plan worked the first run through. You showed up in 2010 with _that_ notebook, a bottle of Retcon and a tragic expression worthy of a sonnet. You told me what happened, and then we went to work. It's all in there; go on," he prodded, "read it."

I didn't want to read it. Moreover, I didn't want John Hart watching me read it. "Later," I said, flipping the cover closed. If he was lying to me - and pieces of me still suspected he was - I wasn't going to allow him the pleasure of seeing his little prank through to fruition.

"No. _Now_," John insisted, "I'm not your chore boy, Jack. I didn't come all this way just to be ordered off."

"What do you want from me?"

John pursed his lips and rolled his eyes upward - a sarcastic affectation that I'd always hated, personally. "A simple thank you, for starters? 'Future me' at least gets a fuck out of the deal. But me, I had to put up with your self-pity and your self-induced amnesia for months, you ass." His voice deepened, taking on a mocking, melodramatic superhero note, "'I have to erase my memories, John,' you said, 'or else I might be tempted to act on them. I could destroy the entire timeline.' Time Agent training bedamned, Jack. Usually you're more of a risk-taker than that. I'm disappointed."

The impression of me was all wrong, might I add. I believe I have a very pleasant tenor.

"So," John continued after a pause, gesturing to himself, "front row seats for the Jack Harkness Stiff Upper Lip while you dosed yourself with Retcon and reread that damn notebook. The last three times, I even had to watch you deal with the fact that you wouldn't allow yourself to save Ianto Jones. Because the _first_ three times, you did everything you could, and he died anyway, one way or another. Along with everyone else."

"That's a _lie_. I know what happened to my team."

John ignored me. I hate being ignored, and he knew it. "The only thing that could save Eye Candy was that damn angel. Not you, not Gwen, and certainly not Ianto - he followed you right in with the 4-5-6 like loyal Old Shep, every time."

A trickle of doubt settled in. I knew how Ianto's devotion would sit with pragmatic, self-motivated John Hart. He was what I had been; what I still was in more than a few dark places. Loyalty like my team had to me was - in his mind - a liability.

He was right, of course. It was. But I wouldn't trade Ianto's loyalty away. Not even to save his life.

Sounds hard and selfish, I know.

That's because it is.

"And you had to keep the angel in the deep freeze," John kept going, "because if he got to know you all, he'd have given the Winchesters the fuck off. Well, maybe 'fuck off' is a little strong," he amended, considering my scowl, "But just like every other idiot in your lot, hell-bent on a suicide run, he'd join Torchwood and fight. It's in there," John snatched the notebook and my torch, and thumbed through it. "Ah. Yes. 'Castiel considers Torchwood the best option against the Leviathan,'" he read aloud, "'Torchwood's knowledge of extraterrestrial life and containment thereof puts us ahead of the Winchesters.' Unusually professional writing, Jack. Given some of the other things you cat on about these Winchesters, though, I can almost hear how smug you were. Me-_ow_."

I'm willing to let John have his way for a while, but there are limits. "Can we speed this up?"

John clicked off the torch and handed it back, along with the notebook that I was still determined not to read. "You know, it's funny? An angel - the freaking celestial messenger of Christian lore and all that - decides that _you_ have the most to offer when it comes to saving the world. And you screwed it up!"

"Your grasp of irony is so keen."

Whether he finally detected the warning in my voice and decided to heed it, or just ran out of one-liners, John sobered. "You'd come back to me, make six pages of cryptic notes, down those amnesia pills, and we'd have to do it all over again. Some mornings I'd wake up and the news would be completely different from the day before. But I always remembered, and you kept coming back every now and then. I never knew when you were going to knock on my door. I knew you were just staggering the dates, so you wouldn't accidentally overlap yourself. But fuck, Jack, you are positively _exhausting_."

I watched him, searching his expression in the pre-dawn light. For once, I'd have been happier if he _was_ lying to me. If it was true, then the worst part about it all was that I had years with Ianto taken away. I left the Time Agency because they'd stolen two years' worth of memories from me. What those years could hold still haunts me. And - if John could be believed - I'd just lost far more than two. And I _knew_ what they contained.

I know you want to know what I was feeling. Ianto. I know. But I can't.

I just can't.

Maybe the words will be ready someday. Maybe you won't be around to hear them when they are, but I've got the time to wait.

"For what it's worth," John added, so faint I nearly missed it, "I'm sorry. About Ianto."

I took a deep breath. Nodded. Not much else to offer.

"You've got a habit of collecting people who'll follow you into Hell."

I rubbed the edge of the notebook with the ball of my thumb. "I can't read this, not here," I repeated, looking up.

John was silent for a while. "You don't even care, do you?" His voice was hard, "You frigid bastard."

About what - Torchwood's guarantee of a short life? Ianto's blood on my hands? "Believe what you want," I fired back, darkly satisfied to be someone else's target for the moment, "it's never going to be worse than the truth."

"Drama queen," John snorted. "I didn't do all this out of the goodness of my heart, you know." I realized I'd mistaken hardness for petulance, which was John, through and through. I also realized - more relieved than I want to admit - he was still thinking about himself. I'd apparently used him, callously, and he was upset about _that_. Not my lack of outward grief. Certainly not Ianto.

Really, I don't know why I expected more from him than that. Maybe lately I've just spent too much time surrounded by people on the moral high road.

Nah. That can't be it.

I reached over and gripped his shoulder. Impulsively, I was fond of Captain John Hart for being so self-interested, self-motivated, and familiar. He leaned into me, and I let him. Just for a minute, for the sake of some human contact, I let him.

Something didn't make sense, though. Something niggled at the edge of my thoughts. I scratched at it, while I tousled John's hair and watched the letireans denude a few more grapevines. Then it hit me.

"Why don't I remember reading those notes?" I asked.

"Because it wasn't you," John answered with an easy shrug, "you've just been living through it all, following your own markers. Should make you angry, knowing you've been shepherded around like a sheep, but then again - you were shepherding _yourself_, so... ooh. That's an arousing thought."

That made sense, although he was right - I was furious at the thought of someone else behind the scenes, yanking my strings like a puppet. That I hadn't known, hadn't even guessed at manipulation. That my future was changed, Ianto written out of it without my say. That I'd been allowed to save Castiel, but not Ianto, Owen, or Tosh. If it had been anyone else's doing but my own, I'd be on a mission for payback. But it hadn't been. I did it to myself.

"I wonder if you'll still knock on my door next year," John mused on my shoulder, completely outside the curve of my thoughts, "raving about the end of the world. And then you'll screw me silly. I'll let you, Jack," his voice was quiet. I could never be sure if he was sincere or just enjoying his own dramatics, which was the bottom of the problem between us.

Layer on a few betrayals, some murders, and an addiction to hallucinogens, and you've got the _whole_ problem.

"Hard to say," I let him feel my shrug. It wasn't impossible. That's what happens when you change the past. Sometimes remnants of the things that could have happened in the future still happen, or bits of them do, because they have to. Like time's stitching itself back together, where a passing traveler or a random anomaly ripped it open.

Torchwood did that once, actually.

"But I'm keeping my wrist strap locked up," John said, "Sad, you resorting to seduction and petty thievery."

"Just like old times," I laughed.

"Just like old times," John agreed, and sat up. "You really won't read that in front of me, will you?"

"It's private."

"I read it, Jack. More times than you can count. Trust me, it's a lot of laundry lists, and you haven't got anything I haven't seen before."

I looked at him, then away. I had no words; no way to make him understand. "Thank you," I said at last, gesturing to the notebook, "I've got to get back to L.A. Make sure nothing's eaten Phil and Rex."

"'Rex?'" John echoed, "my, that sounds _masculine_. Fun?"

"He's annoying," I said.

"Same thing," John winked, "maybe I'll drop by."

He kissed me on the cheek, rose, and started down the hill. He's gotten into the habit of doing that, and I let him. The worst he could do, after all, was poison me.

I looked up at the stars. This early in the morning, the sky was just starting to brighten around the rim. Castiel might be tumbling around in the Rift at this very moment. And for certain, his body was frozen in Angelo Colasanto's basement.

With Gray. Possibly.

My chin snapped down, and I focused on the pale gleaming scales of the creatures a dozen yards off, miraculously still unperturbed.

Maybe we'd saved the world from the Leviathan, but I still had work to do.

* * *

_December 11, 2012  
Somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic.  
Jack_

"Tell me again," Rex crossed his arms to bundle himself up tighter in his parka. His breath smoked contrails off the side of the ship, "what the hell are we doing out here? If you want to dump a body, there's warmer places to do it. I could name you five, right now."

We stood at the railing of the _Oregon_, a dilapidated tramp steamer operated by a friend of mine, bound for the Norwegian coast. At the moment, the ship was quiet in the water. We rocked gently with the swells like a toy boat in a very, very cold bathtub. I grinned sideways at Rex, putting on my best incredulous expression. "You aren't enjoying the trip? Cruise lines pay good money for this view!" I swept an arm out at the chilly dark ocean. The sea was calm, the air so clear that the night sky showed even the faintest stars.

Rex huffed a short, sarcastic laugh. "I'll enjoy it more when it's over. You haven't told me a damn thing. Like how we loaded up a body in a freezer and nobody batted an eye. And how two thirds of the people I've met on this piece of shit boat talk like they've got more college education than God. I've seen guns on at least a dozen. If this is need-to-know, believe me, I _need to know_. I don't do blind ops."

"And yet you're here." I swung back from the rail with a shrug and checked my watch, "They're friends of mine."

Rex shook his head. "Of course they are." He tossed his hands wide. "_Everybody_ wants to hang out around the intergalactic gay dude with the World War Two fetish. I do _not_ get it."

Daleks will always hate, the Slitheen have bad breath, and Rex… will always be Rex. I'm sure there's comfort to be had in that.

Somewhere.

You live the way I have, though, and eventually people have to get creative to really insult you. Creativity? Not Rex's forte.

"Safety precautions, Rex," I said, relenting a little. "You saw the lock on that box. I don't know what will happen when it opens."

"You mean it's gonna explode."

"I mean I don't know. But there's a lot of power wrapped up in there; it could. Hopefully the depth will cushion the blow, if that's the case." While I couldn't see much of Rex in the low light, I could almost feel his stony disapproval, and sighed. The CIA is all about rules and protocols - on the surface, anyway - because the surface has to keep the rest of the world from guessing just how deep the rabbit hole goes. Torchwood? We're not so worried about public image. Protocols are just guidelines for paperwork. We'd never be able to agree on that. "The less anyone knows about what we're doing, Rex, the safer we'll all be. Let's go. We've got some cargo to unload and about a forty-five minute window left to do it."

"Yeah, whatever," Rex grumped, but followed me down to the hold.

The cargo hold of the _Oregon_ looked much like the exterior - flaking paint and patchwork rust. It held the assortment of odd cargo you'd expect from a freighter with no set itinerary. There were drums of kerosene, bales of fabric; crate upon crate of cheap pottery vases. Of course, no tramp steamer is complete without a stock of illegal firearms - Russian make, by the look. The _Oregon_ looked the part, I'd give it that. Castiel's cryogenic unit was exotic here, its white metal and glass glistening in the middle of third-world trade goods like an alien egg case. The control panel on the side blinked steadily now, warning that we had less than an hour left on the lock.

Rex, inexperienced with seafaring, never seemed suspicious of the _Oregon's_ large size and its comparatively tiny hold. I knew better. There were stranger things on the other side of the wall than angels in freezers.

But that's a story for another time.

A few members of the crew arrived to help us roll the cryogenic unit back into its heavy metal container. I did my share, trying my best to shake off the pallbearer sensation of carrying a dead man. He wasn't a dead man, I reminded myself. There were many dead men in the morgue vaults of Torchwood 3, but the vitals panel on Castiel's unit was still bright with signs of life.

His face was set, granite-pale. Some people look peaceful in that state. Castiel, on the other hand, was asleep and hating every minute of it. I'd protected him long enough. Soon, this last piece of the timelines that were - and those that weren't, anymore - would fall into place.

In December of 2011, the Colasanto estate had been purchased for a ridiculous amount of money in the current economic climate, by an individual whose credentials only went far enough to make the sale. The notebook notes said the paperwork fractured off into dead ends and 'lost files.' Some branch of the Families, I'm sure. The estate was gutted, everything scattered to the winds - Castiel among them. The ship originally carrying him and countless other Torchwood acquisitions _mysteriously_ sank between Boston and Fredrikstad, Norway. Big to-do. Lots of press coverage.

Thankfully, though, I read the notebook shortly after John and I parted ways. I have clippings of a _New York Times_ issue that was never printed - something I'd tucked into the book during my various attempts to save the world. I should really have those framed.

Going on the information I had, I spent the rest of 2011 orchestrating the removal of anything... important... from the estate, including technology, a few intact files, some computer hardware, and bodies.

Gray, I remembered too late, had been in the cryogenic vaults circling the surgery. Explosion epicenter.

Castiel and several others in cryogenic units survived the blast due to the sturdy nature of the morgue vaults. It wasn't the first time Torchwood Cardiff fell in on itself, after all. We learned our lessons and reinforced the facility after an earthquake in 1908. The weight of debris falling from above crushed it, but some of the containers were unharmed. Redundancies in the preservation system apparently kept powering a few - specifically the ones directly surrounding Castiel's.

Or maybe they had a guardian angel looking after them.

Above us, the massive hold doors rolled back, revealing a field of stars. Cold air poured into the hold from overhead. A few minutes later, one of the cranes on deck (the only one aft that worked, if you could believe the crew) lowered its massive bucket into the hold. Another fifteen minutes ticked off as the crew secured the container to be lifted, and set small explosive charges on the container doors. Restless and tense, I watched the box holding Castiel hoisted up, and raced to the deck to watch its ascent. The box hung in midair, a dark shape against the sky. For the moment, I forgot about Rex. Forgot about everything.

"Here's looking at you, kid," I said to the angel as the crane rotated the box in a slow arc.

Captain Cabrillo of the _Oregon_ joined me at the rail as the crane swung out over the sea with its cargo. He held a comm in one hand, borrowed from one of the crewmen and painted with a white '7' that glowed like a sign. As he approached, I could hear the chatter of the crew and the hiss of occasional static from the comm.

Rex joined me shortly thereafter, and the three of us watched in silence for a few minutes while the crane shifted its load further and further from the ship.

"That far enough, Harkness?" the captain asked.

"Yeah," I said.

"Hold it right there, Pete," he said into the comm. The crane slowed to a stop, its load swaying gently at the end of its cable. The crew trained the _Oregon's_ exterior spotlights on the container. My hands tightened on the rail.

_"Just give the word, Cap,"_ Pete the crane operator replied, his voice small and roughened by the comm.

Captain Cabrillo glanced at me. In the low light, I couldn't read his expression, but I knew what he was waiting for.

Castiel had his wings clipped for far too long. I nodded. "Do it."

Less than three minutes left to go. I hoped he'd still be sinking when the locks opened. Everyone deserves a ray of hope. As long as Castiel never noticed that freezer, dropping away into the abyss, maybe he'd never know the truth. As long as he kept on believing the Winchesters saved him, he'd still be the Castiel I came to know. That kind of loyalty is a precious thing to me; more than being the dubious hero of someone's rescue story.

"Blow those doors, Pete!" Captain Cabrillo barked.

Up in the operator cabin, Pete detonated the charges we'd set on the container doors. Twin puffs of smoke and a sound like a pair of gunshots echoed across the water. Then the crane came to life again, lifting the opposite end of the container.

In the glare of halogen spotlights, the silver-white pod nosed slowly out of the open doors, driven by its own weight. It tumbled free and catapulted into the water with an impressive splash.

"So that's it?" Captain Cabrillo asked, turning to me again as waves from the drop rippled against the _Oregon's_ hull. I held out a quelling hand, peering into the water as the pod sank. I counted the last moments down to zero.

A few seconds later, there was the muffled boom of a depth charge, and the ocean lit up like a stained glass window.

Believe me, you don't want to know how deep that water is, but it's deep. All you need to know? For a few seconds, Castiel's fireworks flipped everything upside down. Up here was the deep water, and down there was the daylight. He warmed up the waves like a Cuban sunset, fire burning under the surface so bright that the side of the ship turned red. Energy like blue lightning webbed out across the waves. I've seen a lot of beautiful things in my life, like I've said before. That one ranks near the top.

It faded slowly. By the time the ocean slipped into night again, most of the crew was standing at the railing, watching with us.

"I believe you, Harkness, when you say that thing's not dangerous," Captain Cabrillo warned mildly, "don't prove me wrong."

"Oh, he's dangerous," I breathed, "but it all depends on where you're standing."

"From where I'm standing right now," a low, gritty voice said behind me, "you don't look like a threat."

I whipped around.

Castiel smiled one of his faint, rare smiles. "Hello, Captain Jack Harkness."

It ached, but I swallowed the words I wanted to say. I hadn't expected to see him - possibly not ever again, and not so soon at the very least. Unsure how time would have worked out the wrinkle of two Castiels existing simultaneously, I still knew that it would. Powerful things like Castiel might not be subject to the same rules that governed the rest of us, but . Most of me - used to friends not coming home - expected his memory to be wiped clean.

"Hello, Castiel," I said. Beneath us, the engines fired and the _Oregon_ stirred to life. A cold breeze threaded along the deck. Castiel's open trench coat flared around his knees, as perfectly as if he'd engineered the wind just for that purpose. Under the coat, he wore blue jeans and pullover - neither of which were Torchwood issue for cryogenesis. As much as I wanted that to be a sign, I forced myself to discount it.

"You're understandably concerned," Castiel said. His eyes were on me.

"Goes for me, too," Captain Cabrillo said behind me. He sounded amused. I watched Castiel look up, as if just noticing the multitude of people now circling us slowly. A few of the crewmen had their hands on weapons. Brave.

Castiel tipped his head. "Captain Juan Cabrillo of the _Oregon_. You have nothing to fear. Your crew, your vessel and your continued clandestine operations aren't in danger. I came here only for Jack."

"How do you know who I am?" Captain Cabrillo demanded. There was suspicion and alarm in his voice. I waved a hand dismissively.

"He does that," I said.

"Is he a security risk?"

"God knows." Maybe I was a little more flippant than I should have been. Probably. I turned my attention back to the angel. "So. Came for me, Halo? How are your boys?"

"They are both well. Their reception was as difficult as I anticipated." Castiel answered. He glanced away, then back, looking more pleased than he had a moment ago. He smoothed down a stray lapel twisted by the wind. "Dean kept my coat."

"Did, did he? Glad to hear it," I said cautiously, still not entirely sure who I was talking to, "What do you want?"

"I would expect that to be perfectly obvious," Castiel replied, lowering his chin to look at me from the tops of his eyeballs like a disappointed professor.

"Sometimes I get a little thick," I shrugged, "tends to happen around good-looking men."

Faint but distinct, I heard Rex snort. One more reason why we'll never have embroidered tea towels. If you can't have a bit of a flirt now and then, what's the point?

"I am fulfilling your request," Castiel started walking toward me, which I hadn't expected. Determination telegraphed through every movement; familiar even after months without him.

"And what request is that?" I asked lightly.

"I believe this is the equivalent of 'looking you up,'" he answered. The lights on the deck seemed a little brighter. The cold burned my face a little less.

"You know, it's not fair," I said conversationally. He stopped short and looked puzzled. He's not quite the blank slate I thought he was at first blush. Or, _no_ blush, really. Though he can and does get a little red from time to time, trust me.

There I go, jumping ahead again.

"What you do to me," I went on, one hand flicking to indicate the space between us, "it's not fair, Castiel, for someone to make an impression on me this fast. We had what, a few days together and a kiss or two?"

"For you, perhaps," Castiel replied.

"And what is _that_ supposed to mean?"

Silence stretched out between us. I watched Castiel's face; the drop of his eyes while he clearly weighed the consequences of whatever he was about to say. When his gaze flicked back up, he seemed resolute. "I am an angel of the Lord, Jack. You were my charge. Until my responsibilities shifted to the Winchesters, it was my duty to observe and guard you. I have known you for nearly your entire life."

There's just some things a human isn't designed to react to. Especially not this human. Really, how _do_ you answer something like that? Say 'thanks'? Ask where to send the fruit basket? Because if it was true, I wanted to know where the _hell_ his observation and protection had been last July. And the year before. And if it wasn't on his watch, I wanted the names and numbers and asses of whichever angels _did_ have my shift. Guard? **What** guard? And whose business was it to decide I needed guarding anyway? _Captain Jack Harkness_, thank you very much, and I can look out for myself.

"That's not possible," I managed, retreating briefly into denial. As if he'd sensed me taking a mental step back, Castiel moved toward me.

"You became of special interest to the Host when the Bad Wolf changed you," he told me, "through actions that were no fault of your own, you became an abomination. A threat. You should not exist."

"Heard that one already," I said easily, although I'll admit, hearing Castiel use a word as strong as 'abomination' did, actually, sting a bit. Not that I haven't been called that before. I've been called the Devil in a few languages, even. How much lower can you go from there? In Christian mythology, anyway?

A flicker of movement nearby drew my attention from Castiel to the ring of onlookers. I knew Captain Cabrillo's men dealt with stranger things than what had just happened on board their ship, externally, anyway. However, this discussion was headed into deeper waters than they needed to swim. Some pieces of personal information just don't lend themselves to casual disclosure. Not even among friends.

I smiled at Castiel, although I certainly wasn't feeling it. "Come on, let's take a walk," I said, and turned, walking with purpose towards Captain Cabrillo and Rex. They drew aside to let me pass in silence. I didn't look back, but kept my face firmly in the cold breeze, inhaling sharp spikes of arctic chill and quieting my thoughts.

Just out of earshot, I paused at the railing and turned. Castiel - a yard or so behind me - froze when I looked at him. Maybe he had more in common with the quantum-locked kind of angel than I thought.

"For an abomination," I said, maybe a little sharper than I intended, "you seem to care an awful lot about what happens to me."

Castiel tilted his head. "It describes your current state. You are a human and yet you possess traits that you were not created to possess. Traits that set you apart from humanity. The original Latin _ab homine_ means, roughly, 'away from man.'"

"Maybe so, but by current standards, it's a little harsh."

"Current standards are inaccurate."

"They usually are. Look, I'm immortal, I know that. Believe me, I've already had it looked at by a doctor. Nobody's got a prescription for being a _fact_."

"'Immortality' is also inaccurate," Castiel replied, "You are not without death. But you overflow with such life, you constantly overcome it. And by existing, you unbalanced the entire cycle."

"Yeah," I shrugged, "tell me something I don't know, Castiel."

"What has been done to you cannot be undone, even by Death itself. Thus, Heaven moved to guard you, to ensure you did not damage the progression of time." I sensed the touch of sarcasm in his voice as he added, "Actually, to ensure you did not interfere with timelines that are of interest to the Host. But something happened that we did not anticipate. The cycle has rebalanced itself around you. Time made room for one immortal human." Castiel lifted his chin, defying _someone_, although I was pretty certain it wasn't me, "I view that as fortunate, considering the good you have done. The good I have observed you do." Which implied that he'd seen the bad, too.

"I'm not a-"

"No," Castiel cut me off, "you are not a hero. Nor are the men for whom I rebelled from Heaven." With the words, he filled the space around him and more, as he had in the Rockies a year ago. I felt the sizzle of gathering energy over my skin. "But as I believe in them, Jack, I believe you are a good man."

Part of me wanted to believe that. A piece of my own self-worth is wrapped up in being a better man. For Gwen, for Ianto, and for all the ones that came before that got under my skin. And here was someone who claimed to have watched my whole life. Whose credentials - to everyone else - declared that he had the final say.

I've been seduced by offers that weren't half so enticing. But absolution isn't that easy.

"In my experience, it's easier to be a good man when there are other good men to back you up," I said, and regretted the words as soon as I said them. Though I'd intended them as a way to sidestep Castiel's declarations of faith, suddenly the names of the dead hung between us. The dead I sacrificed for a world full of people; for an angel who opened a door he should have left alone. Nobody came to save Ianto. Nobody fluttered down from on high to heal Tosh.

"I failed you, Jack." Castiel stood with his hands curled into fists at his sides, stiff as a plywood cutout of himself. I caught myself almost agreeing with him, and then I recognized his posture. He was taking responsibility, not necessarily because he thought it was true, but because he thought I needed him to. As I'd done for others.

Amazing, how quickly someone can go from not believing in 'angels of the Lord' at all to blaming them for a bad day. It was a moment of weakness. I'm shocked that I had it at all, but I'm over it, and it will _never_ happen again.

"When you weren't watching Torchwood, were you saving the world?" I asked, after a slow breath.

"At first, yes, and then... no," Castiel replied, stark and honest as ever, "and then, yes. It's complicated."

"I figured. Well," the corner of my mouth tugged up into a lopsided smile, "saving the world gets a pass."

"I don't understand."

"Castiel, you didn't fail me," in saying so, I reminded myself as well. Turning to face him squarely, I smiled. "But don't think you can use 'saving the world' as an excuse every time you ditch me."

Castiel ignored me. Or didn't acknowledge me. Or maybe he was so focused _on_ me that he couldn't hear a word I said - and he's the only person I've ever met who could use that as a legitimate excuse. Instead, he barreled into me with so much force that he nearly knocked us both down. I put a foot back to accommodate, shouldering into his charge like an American linebacker. He wrapped both arms around me and held me hard, fists punched up in the middle of my back. My hands landed on his shoulders.

I hate it when people don't listen to me. But I'm willing to make exceptions.

It's the hot ones, I'm telling you. It's always the hot ones.

It was an awkward hug, stiff and desperate. He probably learned that from those boys he hangs out with; they look like the repressed type. Over Castiel's shoulder, I saw Captain Cabrillo grinning at me. It wasn't the first time he'd seen this happen to me, not by a long shot, and I had to smile back at a stray memory or two that dodged the seriousness of the moment.

There was no question. This Castiel was _mine_. The understanding that he was the Castiel who remembered me, and I could probably have him if I wanted made me tighten up around him. Moments like this don't come along very often, and I didn't want to end it. In a messy sort of gesture of my own, I got my hands around his face, tipped his head up, and asked for permission with a look.

He gave it. I kissed him.

From the corner of my eye, I caught Captain Cabrillo waving off his crew. Not that I mind being a peep show, but apparently it was clear that I wouldn't need an armed intermediary this time. There were more critical things that needed doing, like _steering the ship._

I peeled Castiel off with some difficulty. "What are you doing here, Cas?"

"This is my own time," Castiel replied. His expression had smoothed back down; flatlined the way no human could ever hope to duplicate. Except for the treacherous little glances he kept shooting at my mouth, you'd never know he'd just been wrapped around me like a starfish. "however, you are aware that another version also existed?"

That question had to be rhetorical. I raised an eyebrow, and he dropped his eyes to somewhere in the vicinity of my lapels. "That version of myself was no longer... necessary. Therefore I eliminated it."

"You mean you killed yourself?"

"In a manner of speaking, I suppose," Castiel's head went to one side, "yes."

"That was _dangerous_, soldier," I stepped back, "You came out of that box in 2012, too. That could have killed both of you!"

"It is good that you chose to submerge the pod. The energy released in the process was... substantial."

"Blinovitch Limitation Effect," I murmured, "I saw the lightning."

"The timeline has already adjusted far enough that eliminating this parallel of myself posed no threat to my continued existence. I could not simply cease to exist - that would have resulted in a temporal paradox. History was always meant to turn out this way, or I would not have been able to achieve my goal."

"How can you be sure?"

It was Castiel's turn to hike an are-you-serious eyebrow at me. It was cute. It made his forehead wrinkle. In retaliation, I swatted his ass, getting a little satisfaction out of making him jump. "Watch that ego, Halo. You're not as good as you think you are."

"I am aware of the full extent of my abilities," Castiel protested with a glare.

"That's what they all say," I took his arm and turned. Everyone seemed to have found something else to do, including my team. "Come on. I want to introduce you to Rex."

"Rex? Ah. The associate who was taken by the Leviathan."

"Yeah. If I know him, he's probably downing a scotch and pretending tonight never happened. Say," a thought (and a potential opportunity for some mischief) occurred to me, "You report to God. Right?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes."

"Just out of professional curiosity - what's his official take on, you know, _flexibility_?"

Castiel shot me a lengthy, sidelong look. His eyes narrowed, then widened, and he nodded to himself. "You're referring to current popular opinions regarding translations of certain Biblical doctrine."

"It's sort of hard to miss, these days."

"Heaven is indifferent to sexual orientation, Jack," Castiel turned to face front, the faintest hint of a smile touching his lips again, "I assumed you might have guessed that by now."

I grinned. "Oh, Rex is gonna _love_ you."


	4. Epilogue

_The Bit That Never Happened (Or Maybe It Did)  
(But if it had, it would have happened in October of 2011, outside Crowley's lair)_

_Martha_

"Rules, my ass," Martha said to the man leaning against a telephone box in the middle of the pines, "that was direct intervention and you know it."

The Doctor crossed his arms and tipped his head thoughtfully. "We-ell, possibly. But then again, maybe it wasn't. Those rules, well," the arms uncrossed again, hands flashing restlessly, "they're more like guidelines, anyway."

Martha rolled her eyes. "So tell me, Doctor, why did you get involved? Besides the one reason floating round on top."

"You really want to know the truth?"

Martha didn't nod, didn't shake her head; didn't move. Just looked.

The Doctor grimaced. "Nothing so horrible as all that! It's just... well. That _angel_." He stretched the word like an interesting piece of taffy.

"Angel?" Martha echoed. It was the second time she'd heard that word tonight, and she didn't understand it any better than she had the first.

"Yeah," and now he smiled, with the kind of genial good-natured anarchy that made her heart dance, every time. "That angel. The serious one he's been hanging about with recently. Bit of all right. Could just be the making of our Jack." He waggled his eyebrows.

Which just left Martha's mouth hanging open. She struggled for a few seconds to find a civil response, clambering over shock and disbelief. "You mean to tell me," she formed the words carefully, "that you're doing this... to play _matchmaker_?"

"Well I tried it once before, didn't I? Needed to find something a bit... more _resilient_, this time."

Martha didn't know the man personally, but she knew from enough sideways references that the Doctor had found a partner - or at least a temporary fling - for Jack. As some sort of misguided (her opinion) attempt at making amends. To Martha, that sounded a bit like fixing up your old flame with a blind date after the tragic death of their previous boyfriend. But the Doctor seemed pleased with himself about it.

She didn't like the way he used the word 'resilient.' "He didn't-" she started.

Slashing the air with one hand, the Doctor cut off Martha before she could throw an accusation his way. "No, no, nothing of the sort, Martha. Of course he's not _dead_. Well, in some universes I suppose he is, but for all intents and purposes, right now he's _not_. What d'you take me for? Wait, don't answer that." He shrugged, and then smiled again. "You know Jack. Love 'em and leave 'em chap, right? Before they leave _him_. Because they always do, in the end."

And Martha tried to process all that. She really did. After all, she loved Jack and wanted him to be happy, maybe more than she wanted happiness for most people. But there was simply no getting past the fact that the Doctor cared. _Specifically._ Oh, he cared generally all the time, for everybody. But like any good demigod (and the worst possible potential boyfriend), he didn't get personally involved with anyone. And here he was, messing about in Jack Harkness's timeline. For what?

"It's my fault, you know," the Doctor said, suddenly grim. He pushed his hands into his pockets. "Maybe it was his choice to come along in the first place, but the rest is my doing. Nobody should be alone, Martha Jones. Not if they can help it."

"But you can't just make two people fall in love, Doctor! Not even you!"

The Doctor shook his head slowly. "That's not the point. What the point **is**, you see: now Captain Jack Harkness is not alone. Even if those two do something _extraordinarily_ stupid, and end up on opposite sides of the galaxy _hating_ each other," he rolled his shoulders, "they'll know the other one exists, and they'll remember the other one understands what it's like, this 'not ever ending' business. Sometimes, that's all you need."

Martha saw a flash of something horrible in the Doctor's eyes, and found herself remembering how he cradled the Master in his arms. The Master, who tormented him on the _Valiant_. Who held Jack prisoner in the engine room for a year.

"Is that all _you_ need, Doctor?" Martha asked shrewdly. Of course she never got an answer.

The Doctor stood up from his slouch against the TARDIS. He reached out to pat Martha fondly on the arm. It always made her feel like a favorite cat, but she let him do it anyway. "Best be on our ways, then," he said, "keep a lookout for Leviathan. At least for the next few hours. After that, well," he opened the door and grinned back at Martha, soft, narrow features illuminated by warm orange light, "we'll just have to wait and see, won't we? Give my regards to UNIT! Or-" he grimaced again, "-don't, rather. I expect they'll take that as an insult. Anyway, ta!"

Martha stepped back from the TARDIS, watching as it chugged its way into oblivion. She watched the empty spot and the depression in the grass for a few seconds more, then started again for her car. She knew in a few hours' time, she wouldn't even be in Kansas - in fact, who knew where she'd be? But she supposed a few hours was enough time for an ice cream.


End file.
